Solstice
by yellowsubmarine31
Summary: It all started with a girl in the 1920s that has a skill of her own. Edward/OC- makes sense starting in ch. 2...I promise it's better than it sounds! I'm crap at summaries .
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Jane Marie Blackwell was born on March 15, 1910 in Chicago, Illinois to Harold and Martha Blackwell. She, along with her parents and older brother Robert, lived in a small house in the city. Her father, a tavern keeper, was a large man, with a commanding presence. Everyone in the neighborhood knew Harold Blackwell- and therefore knew his family as well.  
Martha was a slim, handsome woman. She spent the majority of her days alongside her friends- "keeping the family in good graces with the neighbors," as she liked to call it. Years later, Jane could still recall that phrase, always spoken in that same tone of voice, coming from Martha's painted red lips. It did not take her long to realize that what Martha really meant was that she could not stand to spend more than a few minutes at a time with her.

And then there was Robert. Her tall, boisterous older brother whom everyone knew not only in name, but on a personal level. He was eight years her senior, and as such considered himself to be her guardian of sorts. He talked to Jane when she had no one else, telling her stories before bed that Martha said were "feeding the child's already over-active imagination."  
But Robert paid her no mind. He told fascinating stories. Sometimes he would read from his novels, and taught her to read as well- by age nine, Jane was already far more literate than most full-grown women she knew. And other times he would talk of distant, far-off places, and fascinating travels around the world.

"Some day, Janie, you and I are going to go there," Robert would say. "I am going to take you to Paris, and Rome, and then all the way to India, and China, and wherever else we want to see! We'll go everywhere."

She would smile and fall asleep happy, thinking of those strange lands that Robert had just spoken of, dreaming of going there with him. Robert was her best friend, and the person she loved most in the entire world.

In time, he would become the one person she would miss more than anyone else she'd ever known.

The 1920s brought forth the Prohibition Era in America, leading to the end of Blackwell's Tavern as it was once known. Harold would have been ruined, had he not found the one man he considered to be his "savior": Al Capone.

Harold brought his business underground, keeping the now-dry tavern open for appearances and opening a speakeasy that brought in the real business. Capone was the one to get him started, and to bring him whatever was needed. In turn, Harold paid a hefty sum to the infamous gangster, and was kept in his good graces.

As the 20's roared on, as it were, Capone grew more and more notorious. His empire skyrocketed- there was hardly a place in the city to turn without one hearing the man's name.

Jane, at the tender age of sixteen, was to be kept ignorant of the foul nature of her father's trade. She worked as a waitress in the tavern front, but Harold never spoke to her about all that also went on. He assumed his young daughter knew nothing, and wanted to keep it that way.

But Jane knew everything that went on inside of the tavern's back door. She was quiet and unobtrusive, and blended in well with the scenery. It had always been both her blessing and her curse that she was so unmemorable. While people didn't see her, she also got peace whenever she needed it. She was a good observer, with a knack for remaining unnoticed. Robert had always teased her about it. He called her "the invisible girl."

Robert, now in his twenties, had grown into a handsome and fascinating young man. He was still every bit his sister's idol, and his adoration for her had not diminished at all either. The only thing that had changed was that after working in his father's bar- the _real_ one- he had grown much more jaded about the world around him. And he talked to Jane about it.  
He figured she was old enough to know. Plus, the girl was not stupid. In fact, his sister was more intelligent than many of the well-educated men that Robert knew. She possessed a wisdom well beyond her sixteen years, and he thought it only fair for her to know exactly what was happening around them.

At twenty-four, Robert was still Jane's protector and best friend. He watched over his little sister, keeping her from all the harm he knew could come over her- especially in their world.

She worked for their father at the tavern, so she was subject to the men that inhabited the place. Robert never missed the looks they gave her, or the less-than-subtle jeers and innuendos they all sent her way as she passed. It angered him to the point of seething.

He was not blind, of course. He could see that his little sister had grown into a pretty girl. Not quite beautiful- she never stopped men on the streets, causing them to turn their heads in awe- but she knew that.

Jane had more of a subtle sort of beauty- all quiet innocence and hidden wonders. Her dark curls, which their mother absolutely refused to let her cut in the latest fashionable bob of the flappers, fell to her chest when it was left loose. She had pale, flawless skin- seeming all the more white because of her impossibly dark hair. Her cerulean eyes were framed by thick lashes, and her red lips often parted to reveal a brilliant white smile. But she was a bit too thin, and had always been a slightly gawky child. That, of course, only added to Robert's need to protect her.

He might have told Jane about their father's nefarious business dealings, but that did not mean he wanted her anywhere near it.

The year was 1926, and Al Capone and his gang were strong- very strong. There was not a soul around who did not know his name, or what he did.

Jane had only seen him once, peering into Harold's speakeasy from her hiding spot against the wall. He was a large man, much like her father, and he'd been wearing a white hat and smoking a cigar. He easily commanded the attention of every man in the room. They listened to him without question, hanging on his every word. Jane was terrified of him.

It was in mid-1926 when everything came crashing down around them. Jane always remembered that day, though it became hazy in her mind. She only recalled bits of it- sitting in the kitchen, reading a book, when Robert came barreling in, holding a newspaper and running breathlessly at them. Martha and Harold stared at him, and Jane looked up from her book.

"They've found us," Robert said, panting heavily. The two oldest Blackwells exchanged confused glances as their daughter looked on. Once he had caught his breath, Robert continued. "The police," he added. "They've discovered the business. I've just heard now through Tommy Rogers that they plan on arresting you tonight. We have to do something."

His brown eyes were wide with both the exertion of all he'd just said, as well as fear- something that Jane had never before seen in her older brother. It was that which scared her more than anything. She'd always considered Robert to be the most fearless man she knew.

Harold and Martha once again exchanged looks- but this time, they were worried. The entire family sat in silence for a moment. Harold was the one to finally speak up.

"We have to fix this," he said firmly. "Robert, go tell the guys everything you know. Martha, hide the stuff we got. Jane, if anyone comes to the door, for Heaven's sake don't answer it. I'm going out to try and fix this."  
And before anyone could ask any questions, he had grabbed his coat and walked out the door.

It was several hours before Harold returned. When he did, he looked flustered and confused. By this time, it was late at night. Robert was still out warning his father's businessmen, and Martha had returned from clearing out the cellar to sit at the table, nervously clutching a cup of coffee that had long ago gone cold. Her own dark eyes darted to and fro across the room, not stopping long enough to focus on any one point. Jane sat in the darkness of the unlit living room, silently watching her mother at the kitchen table, and then her father enter through the kitchen door.

"Martha…I told them," was the first thing that Harold said. Martha looked confused by his words. "I told the police that it was Capone. I went out to try and figure out something to do…and I ended up at the station, telling them the whole thing. I figured it would get me out of getting arrested, placing the blame on another guy. But…what's Capone going to do once he figures this one out?"

Harold's eyes were wide with fear. He knew exactly what the gangster and his men would do. But he shook his head as if he wanted to banish away the thought.

"Maybe they won't know it was you," Martha replied. "Maybe Capone will figure someone else placed the blame on him. After all, he's got a hundred speakeasies in this town. Any one of them could've ratted him out. And at least now, the police are off of our tails." Harold didn't look very reassured, but still he nodded his head as if he was.

"You're right," he told his wife. "Maybe he'll never know."

But Al Capone wasn't the most notorious gangster of their time for no reason.

Jane, who had been sitting unnoticed and listening intently, knew this. Of course Capone would know that it was Harold. And of course he would do something about the situation. He was the most dangerous man in Chicago- and probably the whole United States!

Jane was certain of at least one thing- now that this had happened, their entire family was no longer safe.

And three days later, it finally happened: Capone and his men attacked.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and the Blackwell family sat together at home. Martha cleaned the house while Harold sat at the kitchen table, lazily reading that morning's newspaper. Robert was taking stock of everything in their cellar, while Jane sat in her bedroom writing in her diary.

The house was quiet. No one spoke- they weren't quite sure of what to say to one another. This didn't bother Jane so much, as she was used to sitting in silence. But Martha was obviously unnerved by it, as she washed dishes with unfading vigor. Harold grunted or coughed every few minutes, breaking the thick stillness that had settled across their home. Even Robert managed to make some noise. But no noise came from Jane, the ever-invisible girl. Even the scratches of her pen across paper seemed muted.

And then, just as there had been silence, there came a deafening pounding at the front door. In retrospect, perhaps it had not been so loud after all, but only the quiet of the household made it seem so. The family looked at one another, not one of them sure of what to do, as they did not know who it was at the door.

Surely it was not one of their friends, seeing as they would use the back door. It was also unlike anyone they knew to knock that loudly. Could it perhaps be the police? Did they not believe Harold's story, and had now come to arrest him?  
The four members of the house, now gathering together in the kitchen, exchanged glances all around. They hoped against hope that whoever it was would believe them out, and perhaps go away. Their wishful thinking, however, was completely in vain.

The knocker did not cease- instead, after not receiving an answer, he (for it must be a male) burst through the front door a moment later.

Apparently the knock had not been an inquiry as to whether they were home, but rather a forewarning to the person's arrival. He was getting in one way or another- and bursting down the door happened to be the quickest. It was the sound of it that first alerted the family.

There was a loud _bang_, followed by the _crash_ of the thick wood hitting the floor. The intruder had torn the door clean off.  
"Blackwell!" boomed a deep voice. "We know you're in here, so don't think that there's a chance in hell of us not finding you."

A couple of other voices joined the first one, calling out for Harold. Jane stood in the doorway between her bedroom and the kitchen, pressed flat up against the wall as if attempting to sink right into it and disappear. Harold's face paled to an unhealthy shade of slate grey. He mouthed one word to them.

"_Capone_."

The criminal had come for him.

Jane tried even harder to render herself invisible. If there was one time her uncanny knack for blending with her surroundings would come in handy, it was just then. She remained silent as death as the footsteps neared the kitchen. All four of them were frozen in fear. They dared not move an inch for fear of the men finding them faster. But they could not put off the inevitable.

A skinny, rat-faced man turned the corner and came face-to-face with the four hushed individuals. A foul grin spread across his face as he realized his luck. He would get to be the one to take credit for spotting them first. He had found his target, and the joy of that was now evident all across his hideous features.

"Boss!" he cried, his nasal voice piercing the thick silence. "I found 'em! The whole family, they's in here!"

Heavy footsteps thumped down the hallway as more men gathered in the entryway. Each one- there must have been at least five or six- drew their faces into a similar malicious smile as the first man's, overjoyed with the fact that they had found them. They laughed evilly, and then grew silent as another set of footsteps, a single pair, rang out in obvious authority.

A large man, partially hidden by shadows, swiftly made his way to the front of the group. He parted the men as if he was Moses parting the Red Sea, effortlessly sliding between them to face the family. It was then that Jane got a full glimpse of the large man's face. She recognized it immediately, and almost fainted in terror. It was Al Capone.

"So Harold," the gangster began. "I heard a funny little rumor the other day, from one of my friends down by the police station."

Harold paled even more.

"He said you ratted us out to 'em. That's an interesting story, now isn't it?"

Harold did nothing, and Capone continued.

"You should know, Blackwell…I don't take very kindly to traitors. You understand, of course, that you're gonna have to pay for this highly unfortunate little mistake."

Jane's father swallowed audibly, but still said nothing. Capone's men crept forward, clearly itching to deliver whatever this 'payment' would be. But with an outstretched hand, the man at the front held them back. He stood as if he was carved from stone, the only movement coming from his flaring nostrils. Finally, with a nod of his head so small Jane wasn't even sure that she saw it, he gave his consent. And then the chaos began.

All Jane could see were the silver flashes of knives and the hurtling masses of thick bodies around her. A gunshot sounded from somewhere around the room. A woman screamed- it had to be her mother. Jane couldn't spot any of her family members around the gangsters. She slunk down against the wall, trying to hide herself from the men. Finally- mercifully- Robert spotted her.

"Jane!" he shouted, terror evident in his wide eyes. "You have to hide!"

There was fresh blood on his face, flowing freely from an open wound. His right eye was swelled shut, and already beginning to bruise. Jane nodded, unable to say anything. She had to close her eyes, unable to look at her brother's face. She couldn't see him like that, in pain.

Blindly feeling around, she made her way back to her bedroom door. Her mother screamed again. More gunshots erupted, and Jane slammed the door behind her. She was alone, away from the horror. Gasping for breath, she sat down on her bed. The shouting and pounding was still going on outside, but Jane could barely hear it anymore.

She sat as still as she could be, trying to will her body to stop shaking. Her trembling was uncontrollable. She had to calm down, and then figure out a plan. It was just then that her bedroom door thrust open, and staring at Jane was the rat-faced man who'd seen them first.

"Well, well," he droned, his voice as oily as his hair. "Looks like the little pretty one was trying to run away."

He stepped closer, approaching Jane just as she stood up. She wasn't quite sure of why she had done so- perhaps to run away, or to seem taller as she faced him. But neither one was the case, as she stood in front of him in terrified silence. She just listened to him go on.

"Now I know you's not thinkin' you're gonna get away from me, right? Don't think 'ol Scarface would be too happy about that." He was inches away from her now. She could feel his foul breath against her face. "No sir…you's just too pretty to get away. We's gonna have some fun with this one…" He lifted a finger and ran it down the side of her face. Jane shivered in disgust.

"Get away from me, you horrid greasy excuse for a man!" she yelled, finally finding her voice.

The man's lurid grin disappeared, replaced by a murderous glare.

"Don't you talk to me like that, bitch!" he shouted back. "I think I's gonna have to teach you some manners!"

With that, he shoved Jane back against the wall. She heard the crack of her head against it before she felt it. His hands gripped her arms so tightly she knew she'd have bruises. Thrashing violently, she tried to shove him off of her. But the man was strong- stronger than he'd first appeared.

He held her down firmly, tearing her blouse open as he did so. Jane yelled and kicked, doing everything in her power to try and get him away. But so far, nothing had worked- and her energy was draining fast.

So her screams grew a bit quieter as she slowly resigned to her fate. But just as the man began pulling roughly at her skirt, Jane was struck with both replenished energy and an idea. With new-found conviction, she lifted her knee and struck him square between the legs.

"You stupid bitch!" he yelped, falling away from her as he curled into himself in pain.

Jane gasped for breath as she realized that it had worked. She tried to compose herself once again, trying to think of how to escape- but in the seconds that she did, she missed the man pulling out a long silver knife from his pocket.  
She didn't see him charge back towards her, his own furious conviction burning in his eyes. Before she could comprehend what was happening, the rat-faced man had thrown her back up against the wall, this time plunging the knife deep into her side.

Jane saw the wound before she felt it. There was a sickening squelch of the blade being drawn from her body, then a moment before the blood started to flow. It spread across the white of her ripped blouse, increasing with every quick beat of her stammering heart. At first there was nothing. She looked down and saw the blood, wondering if it could really be coming from her. And then the pain began.

It was horrible- the worst pain she had ever been in. She knew the wound was deep. Her breathing grew shallower, but she screamed as loud as she could manage before sliding down to the ground. The greasy man looked self-satisfied.  
The smile began to return to his face, as Jane slowly felt the life drain from her. Her eyes rolled back, but she forced them open again. She could not drift away. She had to keep fighting. She tried to raise herself, but her legs would not support her. Her knees buckled under the strain of trying to stand.

Just then, the door burst open once again. But this time, Robert stood on the other side of it. Jane's vision swam at the edges, but she could make out his face. It was even more bloodied than it had been before. He was pale, and looked tired. But then he saw the girl on the floor, and his eyes widened.

"Jane!" Robert shouted, and looked from her to the man in the room. "What the hell did you do to my sister?"

He charged at him, determined to protect Jane. But in the blink of an eye, the man had lifted his knife and stabbed Robert repeatedly in the chest. He laughed- an arrogant, disgusting sound that rang out across the room. Robert fell down, sprawled across his sister. Jane's vision was blurring dangerously.

"Robert…" she whispered, unable to manage anything louder.

The pain in her side had grown worse, and she could no longer even see if the man had left the room or not. She wanted to see if her brother was still alive. But she could no longer gather the strength. With one final shuddering gasp, Jane succumbed to the darkness that finally overwhelmed her.


	2. Chapter 2

** Chapter 2**

If nothing else, Edward was nervous. He had been on edge for months now, and though it was fading, he wondered if it would ever pass. Though his body did not physically need to twitch, he still constantly felt…well…twitchy. He likened the feeling to an addict trying to kick their habit. After all, this was his addition that he was trying to overthrow.

It had been eight years since he had first become a vampire.

The year had been 1918, and it was now 1926. It had been eight years since Carlisle Cullen had come into his life, becoming his surrogate father. The man had found him dying of the Spanish Influenza in one of the city's hospitals, changing him by a promise of his mother Elizabeth Masen to "keep him safe."

Edward, of course, had no recollection of this. His human memories were fuzzy, dimmed by his strong vampire mind. He had awoken in Carlisle's home, filled with sudden strength and power and a burning, unyielding thirst for blood.

Carlisle had explained to him what he'd done. He explained the three days of horrid, unimaginable pain that Edward had just gone through. It was the transformation. The venom had spread through his body, ridding him of his human form and turning him into something hard, strong, invincible.

After those three days, Edward was suddenly the world's most perfect predator. He was physically attractive, easily able to lure his prey. He could move faster than humans could even see. He had the ability to crush a boulder into sand with his bare hand. He was a creature designed to kill. He was a monster.

At first, he had been furious. He could remember, at one point, shouting to Carlisle, "You should have just let me die!"

He didn't want to be a monster. And he certainly never wanted to be a _vampire_. How could he handle it? Even with his strength, and beauty, and speed…he didn't want this life.

For weeks after Carlisle changed him, he thrashed about, destroying everything in his path. His "newborn" stage was violent and destructive. He was moody and depressed. He couldn't even face his own reflection in the mirror (shocked, at first, by the fact that he even had one) for fear of seeing his own face. The pale skin, the sharpened teeth, the hideous blood red of his eyes.

Though his memories were dim, he missed the bright emerald hue of his human eyes. These were terrifying. Everything about those eyes told what he was: nothing more than a killer.

But Carlisle explained that he didn't have to be a murderer. Carlisle had been around for over four hundred years- and not once did he nourish himself by human blood. By this time, he was all but immune to the scent of it. It did not bother him in the slightest. He had even become a doctor, so that not only would he not kill humans, but he would _help _them as well.  
Edward, in his newborn stage, was astounded by this. How could anybody smell that delicious, overpowering fragrance and _not_ want to drink it? It was like getting to smell a rich, fragrant wine and then denying oneself the right to drink it. It seemed impossible.

But then Carlisle told Edward how he sustained himself off the blood of animals, hunting them to keep himself satisfied- and preventing him from hunting and killing innocent humans.

"I do not wish to be a murderer either, Edward," he explained to his newfound companion. "That is why I have gone into my chosen profession. It took time, of course, to be able to stand the smell of blood without the urge to drink it. But it does quite well to feast off of animals. It does not weigh so heavily on the mind. I like to think of it as a vegetarianism of sorts."  
The logic of this thinking made sense to Edward, and within a few months he grew less regretful of his fate. With time, the red of his eyes faded- he did not feed off of humans, and his eyes reflected as such. Within the first months, they turned a burnt orange, and then a tawny sort of yellowish-brown.

He went hunting with Carlisle, filling himself on the blood of animals so he did not have to drink from humans. It was different…not quite as satisfying as human blood would be…but it would do.

As the months went on, Edward grew thankful. After all, if he was destined to be a vampire, there was not a better soul on earth to turn him. He was glad that Carlisle had been the one to be his mentor.

A few years after his change, Edward went through a "teenage rebellion" phase of sorts. He began to grow moody again, wishing to distance himself from his- for all intents and purposes- father. He suddenly wanted to be free, to go off on his own and test out the extent of his vampire skills. The craving for human blood resurfaced with vigor, taking him by surprise. He hadn't felt this strong a thirst in over four years. Edward wanted to taste it, to know what being a "real" vampire felt like for once. He was ready to _run_.

And so run he did. Carlisle never stopped him. He understood the boy's desires, and let him go without a word. Edward was off on his own for the first time, and the freedom overwhelmed him. He was alone with his thoughts, his desires, and his…extra skill.

He had noticed, some time before, that it constantly felt like people were talking to him. It was like being in a ballroom full of chattering individuals…even when it was silent. He often answered whatever Carlisle had 'said', only to be given a quizzical look- and then realize that Carlisle had not spoken at all.

So on top of everything else, Edward had discovered that he could read minds. Carlisle was amazed by it. He immediately set off theorizing on why this was- why Edward had this special skill. He figured that the boy had already had a knack for reading people in his human life, and it had carried over into his vampirism with an extra (a _very_ extra) force. He was astounded by this skill of his son's. But Edward, for the most part, was just annoyed.

Everywhere he went, he could hear what people were thinking. He mostly tried to tune it out, letting it simmer to a background buzz in his head. He did so especially when he'd gone off on his own, not wanting to hear the thoughts of the people he now slaughtered.

His eyes steadily grew red once again, and he stopped looking at his reflection in the mirror. Every time he did, he saw the face of a murderer staring back at him. He already had to deal with drowning out his victims' thoughts. He could not bear to see the look on his own face as well.

That was why, in 1925, he went back to Carlisle. On his own, he had come to the realization that this was not who he wanted to be. He could no longer be a "real" vampire, whatever that was. The toll of the lives he had taken had finally settled on his shoulders. He wanted to go back to the life to which he'd been introduced, with Carlisle. It was time for the prodigal son to return.

Carlisle welcomed him back with open arms. He knew that Edward would make the right decision for himself. And he happily accepted his son into his home once again. By this time, he had also gained a new member in his family- a young woman, three years older than Carlisle's human self, by the name of Esme. She had fallen- presumably to her death- from a cliff, and the hospital had already placed her in the morgue. But Carlisle's vampire senses picked up the faint heartbeat that her body produced, so small it would not be picked up on any machine. She was minutes from death- so Carlisle decided to save her.

After her transformation, Esme adapted to the vegetarian lifestyle far more quickly than Edward had done. She was helped immensely by Carlisle- and the two soon fell madly in love. When Edward returned, Esme took him in as her son. She was grateful for it as well, never having had any children of her own as a human. Carlisle and Esme were the best parents that Edward could hope to have, considering he no longer had his human parents. The three of them grew into more than just a coven- they were a family.

It was a hot day- unseasonably hot for September- in 1926 when Carlisle received word of an emergency on the other side of town. They still lived in Chicago, though they were planning on leaving within the next couple of months. They could not, after all, remain in one place for too long. Humans would begin to notice if, after so many years, they did not age at all. So they were soon to leave Chicago, and go wherever they wanted to head next.

But on that particular warm day, long before they'd even yet decided on where they would head next, Carlisle received that call. Esme and Edward listened intently to the man on the other end of the line, telling the doctor all he knew of the current situation.

"_There was some kind of massive attack- we need you down here immediately, Dr. Cullen. Four of them were hurt. We're not sure if anything can be done. It's bad, but you're the best there is."_

Carlisle immediately agreed, of course. "Edward," he instructed. "Come with me, son. See if there's anything you can do to help."

The young vampire was wary, but he agreed to help. He still carried the guilt of killing so many humans with him, and thought that if his senses could help save one in any way, then maybe a bit of his conscience could be eased. With a quick peck on the cheek for his wife, Carlisle and Edward were out the door.

They decided to run, knowing that it would be faster than driving would have been. Keeping to the shadows and alleyways, they remained unseen by humans. And within minutes, they had arrived at the scene of the emergency.

They ruffled themselves a bit, trying to seem flustered and…well…human. The man who had telephoned Carlisle seemed a bit surprised to see them there so quickly, but it was dispelled by the blonde doctor's immediate insistence on seeing the full extent of the situation.

"This is my assistant," he said smoothly, introducing Edward to the other man. "In such a situation, I assumed I would need all the help I could get."

The other man nodded, and immediately ushered them inside. Edward was immediately struck, before anything else, by the _smell_. There was blood everywhere- that much was obvious. Even if he could not have seen it, it would have been obvious by the overwhelming scent of it all. His skin immediately prickled, his body heightened in interest. His every vampire sense tingled with thirst, itching him to act on the creature that he was.

"It helps if you hold your breath," Carlisle whispered, too low and too quickly for any human to hear.

Edward did just that, and while it did not take the temptation completely away, it certainly helped. Then he could focus on the task at hand, which was quickly proving to be a large one. As he looked around the room, Edward finally saw the extent of what had happened there.

Words like "bloodshed" and "massacre" and "suspected gangster activity" flew from the mouth of the same man that had called Carlisle, the chief officer in charge of the case. As he looked around, he saw what had been done- and he was completely horrified.

The blood was splattered across the walls, pooled on the tile floor of the kitchen, smeared across almost every surface in the room. On that same floor lay a woman, her arm twisted at an unnatural angle, a bullet hole through her head. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open in a silent scream. Edward could not look at her anymore, already haunted by the blank stare of her lifeless brown eyes.

He walked on with Carlisle, stopping at the second victim- this one dead as well. He had been shot once in the leg, and another two times in the back. He lay face down on the living room carpet, his large body taking up much of the small room. Carlisle and Edward exchanged sad glances, knowing that there was nothing to be done for either of them.  
They continued on throughout the house, looking through every room. It was only in the last room that they checked, a small bedroom off of the kitchen, that they found anybody else.

There was a young man there, perhaps in his early twenties- easily the son of the man and woman in the other rooms- sprawled across the ground. He had been stabbed multiple times in the chest, and his clothes and hair were matted with blood. It did not take long for the two vampires to pronounce him dead as well.

They rolled him over, and found underneath him a girl whom the young man (presumably her brother) had obviously been trying to protect before he died. That fact was the first thing to sadden Edward. The second thing was the fact that the girl just looked so _young_. She was small- much smaller than Edward himself, of course, and smaller even then most people he knew. She could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Her face was angelic, almost serene-looking. Near-black hair fell about her shoulders, spread like a dark halo. She was hauntingly pretty, even in her dead stillness.

Edward was unbearably saddened by this strange girl's presence. Had he the ability to do so, he would have cried. Kneeling down, he tenderly touched her wrist. And then he felt the faintest hint of a pulse.

"Carlisle!" Edward shouted (though still quite softly, for human ears), standing in the blink of an eye. "Carlisle, come quickly!"

The man was there in a tenth of a second. It was lucky that the officer had left, or he would have been quite concerned by the quick movements that Carlisle and Edward made.

"She's alive," he said softly. "She has a pulse. It's faint- almost nonexistent, and surely not enough to be picked up by anybody else…but it is there." He looked at his father in silent question of what to do.

Carlisle bent down to examine her briefly, and then looked back up at Edward. "She is dying quite rapidly," he finally replied. "She would not last the length of the trip to the hospital. We could leave her be, and let her go…" he looked at his son's face, which had grown wide in horror at the suggestion. The boy felt a strong, unexplainable connection to this strange girl.

Carlisle then spoke again. "Or we could…save her."

Edward knew what that meant. If it had been possible, he would have paled even more at the thought of it. He did not want this girl to be like him. But at the same time, he could not see her die. There was some force in him that seemed to say this girl was not done living- she had so much more left in her. With newfound determination, he looked up at Carlisle.

"Do it," he replied. "I am not strong enough- I would only kill her in a more terrible way than she is already dying. You must be the one to make the change. Do it…but for heaven's sake, do so quickly."

Carlisle nodded once, and then picked the girl off of the ground. He lifted her wrist to his lips, and shut his eyes before baring his teeth. With one quick movement, he bit down.

Her body convulsed, but she stayed silent. It heaved upwards for a moment, and then eventually slowed and stopped. The girl did not make a sound. Edward watched, looking for a sign that something had happened. Carlisle explained that she would feel it herself, though they might not notice the beginnings of the change. The venom had, however, begun to spread. He instructed Edward to carry the girl back to the house and to tell Esme what had happened, and that he would talk to the police about what he had found.

With a nod, Edward gingerly pulled the girl into his arms. He held her as he would a china doll- careful not to move her in the slightest bit. Running as quickly as he could without being seen, he arrived back at the Cullens' home, told his mother of everything that had gone on in the house, and laid the girl on the couch in his father's study. Carlisle arrived home not much later. And now there was nothing left to do but wait.

For three days, the Cullens waited. Carlisle and Esme checked in on the girl a few times a day, looking for any changes that had taken place. But Edward stayed by her side every hour of the day, holding the girl's hand as he sat still as a statue, waiting for the transformation to be complete.

He refused all offers to go hunting- he was not thirsty anyway. All he wanted was to be by this girl who had inexplicably drawn him in, though he did not even know her name. He vowed to find that out the moment she woke up, wanting to know what to call this strange creature.

The days were long, but Edward barely noticed. Through the corners of his eyes he saw the sun rise and then set. He heard his parents walking throughout the house, but did not move a muscle. Everything was background noise to him. Luckily, Carlisle and Esme did not press him on the matter. They understood his need to be by the girl's side. After all, it was he who found her.

So he sat by her as the venom spread, trying to keep his mind away from the thought of how painful it must be for her. After all, his own transformation had been only eight short years earlier. He only hoped that it would end soon, so that he might actually meet this girl. He waited long, lifeless hours.

And then, in one not-so-special moment on the afternoon of the third day, she opened her blood-red eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The only thing that Jane could remember, after the blackness, was _pain_. She had been unconscious from blood loss after being stabbed, and slipped away knowing that death was near. The world was fading away fast, and she knew that soon she would join her family in whatever waited for her. She was falling, and dying, and she had just come to accept her fate, when suddenly there was something else besides the blackness.  
It was warm at first. A slow, throbbing warmth in her neck. It was almost comfortable, for the length of a second. Then it began to grow too warm. It was hot…and spreading fast. To her chest, her stomach, her limbs. It was everywhere, and it was growing hotter by the second.  
_Make it stop!_ She wanted to scream. _It's burning me!_  
But she couldn't find the words. The heat grew unbearable, and she was sure that if she opened her eyes she would see charred, blackened flesh where her white skin had once been.  
But she could not gather any sort of strength to open her eyes. The pain was far too unbearable. There was that horrible, all-consuming fire that raged throughout her veins, so great she could not even scream. It was crushing her, and squeezing the life from her lungs. She was smoldering from the inside out, with nothing to do but stop it. Vaguely, Jane wondered if this was how it really felt to die- imprisoned in her own agony.  
She did not know how long it went on. Time had lost all meaning. There was nothing but the constant, horrible pain that surged through her veins, seemingly growing worse with each passing moment.  
Jane retreated into her thoughts, trying to separate her mind from her body. She silently begged for death to claim her if it would only make this agony _end_. There was no relief from it, but she could still think.  
She tried to imagine anything that did not remind her of her current situation, though it proved exceedingly difficult. She counted in her head, wanting something to do and liking the simple repetitive action of the numbers.  
And finally, the throbbing dulled, and the pain began to fade away.  
It was small at first- only the feeling in her fingers and toes returned to normal. It seemed like hours that only those had stopped hurting. But it slowly- so very slowly- returned to her hands and feet, her legs, her stomach, her arms… And finally her whole body gave a couple of soft, pulsing throbs, and the pain stopped altogether.  
And she now could open her eyes.  
The first coherent thought that Jane had was, _am I dead now_? She opened her eyes, and sat up to look at her surroundings. A dull nagging thought prodded at the back of her mind: _I feel too aware to be dead_- but she pushed that away. After all, how could she not be dead?  
She raised herself upwards, and looked about the room that she now realized she was in. She did not recognize it at all, and knew she had never been there before. It was obviously some sort of office or library, filled with thick books and a large, ornate wooden desk. Whoever's room this was obviously had a large amount of money, that much was obvious. Jane noticed next that everything seemed…different.  
She could now see things so much more clearly- incredibly clearly, actually. Even sitting across the room, she could see the grain of the wood that made up the desk. When she looked at the lamp, she could make out all of the seven colors in the spectrum, along with an eighth color she could not name, but that was beautiful. Her eyesight had suddenly grown impossibly good.  
She sighed, and then listened to the sounds around her- wondering if she could perhaps hear anything to tell her where she was. There was nothing familiar about the sounds of the place: cars driving about the roads, people shouting on the street, a man and a woman whispering on the floor below her…  
_Wait a minute_.  
She could hear whispering an entire floor below? Jane shook her head, unwilling to believe that it was true. She took a deep breath in to steady herself from the strangeness. And then she realized that the feeling did not have the same relieving effects as breathing normally did. It was not bad, but it was not good either. She did not need air in order to live.  
_What on Earth is going on_?  
It was then that a small cough beside her led Jane to the realization of another person's presence.  
She whipped her head around in a blindingly fast movement- it seemed that almost before she thought to move, she had done it. The motion would have terrified her, had she not been preoccupied with the thought of somebody else in the room. When she had finally turned, she found herself face-to-face with a teenage boy. A _beautiful_ teenage boy.  
He could not have been much older than her- perhaps a year or two at most. His hair was unkempt- a strange hairstyle for a young gentleman of the 1920s. It was tousled bronze in color, and looked as if he had just been driving about in a topless car without combing it afterwards. He had soft amber eyes, so deep and so warm that Jane felt in danger of melting within them. He was astoundingly handsome. The girl seemed in a trance, until the boy spoke and brought her back down to reality.  
"Perhaps I can explain what is going on," he said, answering her question- and prompting Jane to wonder if she had said it out loud. "You did not," he continued, answering her _second_ unspoken question. "I simply have a bit of an…ability, of sorts. But please, don't be frightened. All will be explained quite soon. Just…please, indulge me first. What is your name?"  
Jane finally brought herself out of her silence, having been too enraptured by his melodious voice.  
"Jane Blackwell," she replied, then started.  
Was that _her_ voice? It was too lovely to belong to her. It sounded like wind chimes, or soft bells- with only a hint of her typical voice at the base of it. Had she truly died- was this now her heaven? She never thought it would seem so…real.  
"I assure you, you are not dead," the boy answered. "You are just…quite different now. Perhaps you have noticed the changes in yourself?"  
Jane nodded. The eyesight, the hearing, the quick movements, her _voice_…she was definitely very, very different. But she just felt too _alive_ to be dead. Plus, if she was dead, she would not have the burning, parching thirst in her throat that she had just then noticed.  
She felt as if she had been walking through a desert for days with no water, the wind and sand rubbing her throat raw. She needed water…but somehow knew that that would not be the thing to quench her thirst.  
"What is this?" she asked, knowing the boy would already know what she meant through her thoughts.  
"You are thirsty," he replied. His face suddenly took on a forlorn expression. "It is what happens, when one becomes a vampire."  
Surely Jane would have fainted, should she have the ability. But instead she could only stare at the boy until he told her to follow him downstairs, and that he knew somebody else who could explain it better.  
Edward, as she soon found out his name was, brought her to a blonde man of perhaps his mid-twenties who introduced himself as Carlisle. At his side was a beautiful chestnut-haired woman named Esme. They told Jane about themselves, about their lives, and about their nature.  
Carlisle explained that he was a vampire, and over three hundred years old at that. He told her about how he had found Edward eight years earlier, dying of the Spanish Influenza.  
Jane remembered that- she had been eight years old at the time, and luckily not hit with the virus. It was then that she realized her memories, the ones of her childhood and her family, were fuzzy- rather like looking through a thin veil.  
Edward, having read her mind, told her that that is what human memories now looked like. It was another byproduct of vampirism. The human mind is weak compared to the vampires', and thus makes the thoughts from before all that much dimmer. Carlisle was quick to explain things like this as well. Jane could only nod along and try to take it all in.  
The blonde man continued to explain everything to her, telling of how he then met Esme only a few short years earlier, only moments from death like Edward had been, and changed her. He explained to Jane that the only way he would change someone is if there was no other choice.  
"You," he said, "Were inches from it. Had Edward not heard your heartbeat, much too faint for any human to pick up, you would have surely been gone. I would have tried to save your human life…but it was far too late. By that time, surely any movement would have killed you. And my son saw something in you that told him you still had much more life to live."  
Jane looked at Edward. His eyes were on the ground, and he looked like if he could, he would be blushing. She couldn't help but give a tiny smile. Was this handsome boy _embarrassed_ by what Carlisle had said?  
"No," Edward sheepishly replied to her thought. But he mumbled, his actions belying his words. Jane's smile widened, and she ran her tongue experimentally across her now razor-sharp incisors. That brought her to her next question.  
"So this horrible thirst," she began, looking at Carlisle. "It's for…_blood_?" Having read stories about vampires, she knew what the creatures were like. Though of course, she'd also thought that they were myths.  
"I am afraid so," Carlisle responded with a sigh. "But my family and I are a different sort of vampire. We call ourselves 'vegetarians'. We only feed off of animals- never humans. Of course, if you wish to hunt humans, that is your choice. We cannot make the decision for you. Most newborns, such as yourself, are consumed by their thirst, and cannot resist the scent of human blood. They really have nothing else on their minds but feeding. In fact, I am quite surprised that you have kept yourself under this much control, so young in your life."  
Jane thought about it. Of course, she was rather thirsty. The pain was horrible, and burned her throat raw. She was very curious about this new lifestyle of hers than anything else, and would have rather heard more about it. But now that Carlisle had mention it, she _did_ want to feed.  
"Carlisle…we should take her to hunt," Edward piped in.  
Jane began to think that it was rather lucky he could read her mind, considering how little she spoke. Even in her human life, she had not spoken very much. Robert had always been her voice, more or less. He understood her, and spoke when she did not want to.  
She gave Edward a grateful smile. He reminded her a bit of Robert. Of course, a throbbing ache went through her at the thought of her brother, but she tried to push that aside.  
Carlisle and Esme had both readily agreed to Edward's suggestion, and now they were going to hunt.  
"We're going to go a few miles south," Carlisle explained. "It's just a quick run to the near forest where we hunt."  
Jane raised an eyebrow at him.  
Esme smiled softly. "You will be able to run, dear," she said, placing a comforting hand on Jane's small shoulder. "It seems strange now, but running is like second nature to us. You get used to it rather quickly."  
Jane wasn't quite sure what to make of that. She had never run a day in her life. Not for any extended period of time, anyway. And running a couple of _miles_? That seemed impossible. She would surely slow them all down.  
But she simply nodded in acquiescence, and followed the three vampires out of the house.  
They walked to the edge of town, Jane taking in every sight around her with her new vision, looking at everything as if she was seeing it for the first time. It was nighttime, that much was obvious, but it did not seem so. Rather, it seemed to just be a dimmer version of day. She could still see everything as clearly as if it were daytime, though it had all taken on a faint purplish-blue tint.  
She could also see much farther than she'd ever been able to as a human. Even as they passed, Jane could make out every detail in the brick of the buildings, or the cracks in the sidewalks. She could even see the filaments in the light bulbs of the streetlamps. She marveled at each little thing, eagerly taking it all in.  
There were not any passersby on the streets, leading Jane to believe that it was very late at night. Edward, having read her mind, explained that it would be much easier for her to go out when there were no people- having humans around would only urge her temptations that much more.  
She nodded, already smelling the faint, lingering aroma of humans that had walked there earlier. It was a sweet scent, and spurred her thirst- though not nearly enough as if they had actually been there, as Jane could imagine.  
She thought briefly about what would happen if a human actually were there, heart beating and blood running thick through his veins. The mere thought made her throat flare up in burning pain. She quickly pushed it away and focused on the task at hand.  
Once they reached the edge of the city, and there was almost nothing left in the way of people, Carlisle told her that it was time to run. And with a start, he took off next to his wife. Jane could follow their movements, though she was sure she would not have been able to do so only a few days before. She looked at Edward, who stood still beside her.  
"Shall we?" he said with a smile. He put a hand on the small of her back, gently guiding her forwards. Jane nodded, and began to run.  
She had not known what exactly to expect from it. Exhaustion, probably. A complete inability to run, definitely.  
But what she hadn't counted on was how _exhilarating _it all felt. Flying through the miles upon miles of emptiness after the three others was sheer bliss. Feeling nothing but the breeze causing her hair to fly out behind her, her legs loving to stretch, and pound against the ground in rhythmic motion…it was bliss.  
She could have run for hours and never tired of it. Surely her new body would not betray her in such a petty way. Human exhaustion would not plague her- her body was invincible.  
As she ran, Jane began to grow accustomed to her new life as a vampire- and for the first time, she began to realize that she might actually like it very much.  
They reached the forest soon after, Jane feeling elated from their run. Carlisle and Esme went off on their own, after Edward promised that he would teach Jane to hunt. He turned to her.  
"Right, now it is quite simple. Let your senses guide you- follow the scents, I know you can pick them up. Tell me…what do you smell?"  
Jane turned and inhaled deeply. "Dirt," she replied. "Thick, rich dirt. And trees. I can smell the woods. There is grass, and leaves, and rotting wood. There was a fire here a couple of days or so ago as well…perhaps a mile to the right. Somebody went camping and built a fire."  
Edward nodded. "What else? Search, Jane."  
She nodded and opened her mouth to speak again, listening to herself as much as she listened to Edward. Her own voice still fascinated her, with its beautiful chiming and melodic sound. "I smell…some kind of animal," she replied. "I can hear a heartbeat as well. It smells…a little bit like sticks and grass. It's bland. Are we supposed to drink that?"  
The boy chuckled. "Yes, we are supposed to drink that. It is a deer. You get used to it after awhile, honestly. Now, come on."  
Jane wrinkled her nose, not quite believing him, but followed him deeper into the woods. He remained quiet as the grave, barely disturbing the forest as he ran through it. She realized that it was easy for both of them to do so. They crept up on the herd of deer that she had smelled.  
"Now, just act on your instincts," Edward whispered, too low for the deer to hear, which would cause them to run away. "Do what comes naturally."  
She nodded, and silently stepped forward. Willing her brain to stop thinking, Jane let her body do what it already knew to do.  
She crouched down in a prepared stance, ready to pounce when the opportunity should strike. Her sharp eyes took note of every part of the deer's body- the twitching of the hind leg muscles, the movement of the jaw as it lazily chewed on a leaf. Jane felt a growl rumble low in her throat, again too low to reach the deer's ears. Despite the bland scent, she found her mouth still watering (with venom, as Edward had told her earlier) at the thought of getting to eat (or rather, drink). She dug her fingernails into the ground, preparing to strike. And just before the deer realized what hit it, Jane pounced.  
She flew into the air with extraordinary grace, landing on her target and knocking it to the ground with her strong body. With a quick movement, she dug her teeth into its neck and pulled, biting through the thick skin as if it were a knife sliding through butter.  
Her actions surprised her.  
She figured that this sort of thing should have disgusted her. After all, she was hunting and killing an animal with her bare hands- mostly with her teeth. She was ripping through it without a second thought, preparing to drink its blood. But it did not disgust her.  
In fact, the idea of the hunt now fairly intoxicated her with excitement. As she tore the flesh from the dead animal, she could not help but be proud of her kill, eager to satisfy herself with its blood.  
She lowered her mouth, and began to drink what she had so craved, letting the taste fill her mouth. It was a woody sort of taste- a bit bland, and missing the delicious sweetness that she instinctively knew a human's blood would have. But it filled her all the same, and she drank from it happily.  
Once she had completely drained that deer, along with another, Jane was completely filled. Edward had found his own deer alongside her, and Carlisle and Esme had gone hunting a bit farther out. Jane was actually almost glad she did not have to see them hunt. Though she had only just met her hours before, the thought of sweet Esme ferociously taking down an animal seemed too strange to take on Jane's first hunt. That would have to wait for another time.  
When the four had reconvened, they all took off together in another glorious run, and arrived home at the family's house so that Jane could get the rest of her questions answered.

Her first questions had to do, of course, will all of the stories surrounding vampires. As soon as the walked into the house, she began. "Carlisle…will I now not have a reflection in the mirror?"  
He chuckled. "That is just a myth. You will appear perfectly fine in a mirror. Here, let me show you." He left the room, and came back a few moments later holding a gilded frame.  
Jane took it- and realized that she was about to see herself for the first time since her transformation. She took a deep breath…and as she looked in the mirror, she gasped at what she saw.  
It was her reflection…wasn't it? She had to double check. The face looked like it could have once been hers, had she been…well…beautiful. Her hair now naturally fell in soft curls, falling past her chest and halfway down her back, near black in color and impossibly shiny. Her skin had turned a stark, unmistakable shade: pure white. Her face had not essentially changed…her features had just more or less evened themselves out to practical perfection.  
But her lips were still slightly out of proportion, the lower one being a bit too big, and it still looked the same when she bit at it with her now perfectly straight, impossibly white teeth. The small action made her smile. It was definitely still her.  
Even with the white skin, flawless features, and perfect hair…underneath it she was still the same quiet, unremarkable Jane Blackwell. Only now, of course, she was actually a bit…remarkable.  
She had certainly changed- though no features so much so as her _eyes_. At first, Jane did not even want to look at them. They were too different from the blue eyes she'd had in her human life. These were wild, bright, and shockingly blood red in color.  
"That is just from your human blood, still coursing through your system," Carlisle explained. "It is also why you are so strong- why all newborn vampires are so strong. The vampires who then continue to drink human blood keep that eye color. But in the next few months, if you feed off of animals as we just did, it will fade and eventually become the same color as ours."  
Jane looked at the three other vampires once again. All of their eyes were a similar golden hue, much like liquid butterscotch. It was a warm, comforting color- so different from the terrifying red of her own eyes. She shuddered, an instinctive reflex, glad her eyes would not stay that way forever.  
As the night wore on, Jane only asked more and more questions. She learned the history of each one of their lives, and told them what she could remember of hers. Carlisle taught her about vampires, with help from his wife and his son. As the morning dawned, a whole new question entered Jane's mind.  
"Don't we have to sleep now?" she asked, though she still felt as energized as she had on their run. "Won't we burn to a crisp if we go out into the sunlight…or whatever is supposed to happen to us?"  
Carlisle chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Another myth," he replied. "Probably derived by humans because of our habits. It's not that we _can't_ go out in the sun, we just _don't. _It's rather…strange, for us. You shall see, on the next sunny day. And as for sleeping…we don't."  
Jane's eyes widened. "Never?"  
"Never. We do not have the need for sleep. You will always feel as energized as you do at this moment. It is quite useful most of the time, though the hours do grow long when one is alone. Of course, we do have each other. There always seems to be ways of passing the time. I usually study, and Edward has taken up piano. Esme tends to do whatever her heart desires at the time."  
The newborn nodded. So she would never sleep again. The thought was oddly not as disheartening as she would have figured it to be. If she did not have to sleep, she would have time to do anything else she could think of to do. The extra hours in the day could actually prove to be quite handy.  
She asked more questions, and listened as Carlisle (with his family's input, whenever they felt it was necessary) gave his answers. He was a fascinating man, and Jane felt she could listen to him talk forever. They must have sat there for hours, she figured, in their question-and-answer session. But Carlisle did not seem to mind. After all, what else would they do with their ample free time?

As the weeks went on, Jane grew more and more comfortable with Carlisle Cullen and his family. They began to grow into a sort of family for her- teaching her, helping her, guiding her into the vampire life. She was eternally grateful for them.  
She did not speak more than necessary- just like her human life- so it also helped most of the time to have Edward's special gift of mind reading. Carlisle had explained that this was a very extraordinary gift, and that most vampires did not possess them. That made it all the more fascinating.  
Of course, Jane was about to discover a few things about herself, as well.

It happened one night while they were hunting. Jane and Edward ran through the forest side by side, chasing after the scent of a deer they had picked up a mile back. They had not hunted in awhile, which earlier that evening Carlisle had admitted was an exceedingly stupid idea.  
As a newborn, Jane was supposed to feed often. But Carlisle explained that as time went on, it would fade- Jane was thankful for that. She was getting tired of feeling thirsty almost all the time.  
Though with her easily distracted mind, she did not at that moment care that she hated the feeling. She really just wanted to hunt.  
As they ran, the two caught sight of the herd they had smelled. There were five, perhaps six deer, lazily roaming the forest. Jane began to grow thirstier as she watched them silently.  
"I'll take that buck on the left," Edward whispered. "You go around to the right and take that one there."  
Jane nodded, and they split paths in order to catch their prey by surprise. That way they would have more chance of getting both deer at once (not that they couldn't outrun them if they didn't, but it still made it easier).  
But as luck would have it, in the next step Jane ended up landing a foot on a twig. It made a soft _snap_ sound, just barely loud enough for the deer to hear. It snapped its head up, and Jane knew that within the next second it would look her straight in the eye- and then run away.  
Suddenly, she thought of what her brother Robert had once said, and wished she could become 'the invisible girl' once again like he had once called her. And then there came a gasp from off to her left.  
"Jane!" Edward whispered. She turned to look at him. He had completely forgotten about hunting, and had instead walked over to stand in front of her. "Jane…are you there?"  
She furrowed her brows in confusion. "What are you talking about?" she whispered back. "I am right in front of you!"  
Edward's eyebrows lifted up nearly off of his forehead. "But…I can't see you!"  
Now it was Jane's turn to gawk. "What do you mean, you can't see me? I'm right here, where I've been the whole time!"  
"I have no idea where you are!" His eyebrows were still raised. He looked around, squinting his eyes as a human would when trying to see in the dark.  
Jane blanched. Hunting was suddenly the last thing on her mind- she wasn't even thirsty anymore. That was the thing about vampires- they are easily distracted. And now, she had something new on her mind. Turning to Edward, though he could not even see her, she spoke.  
"We have to find Carlisle."  
They found him and Esme about a mile away. They had not yet gotten to feed either, still stalking a couple of coyotes they had smelled a while before. Both of them were already turned towards Edward and Jane.  
"We heard you running," the oldest vampire said to them. He took note of Edward's still stunned facial expression. "What is wrong, son?"  
"It's Jane," Edward answered.  
He looked at her. Apparently sometime during their run she'd become visible to him once again. He slowly shook his head, as if he still could not quite believe his own thoughts. "Something has happened. I don't even know how to describe it. It was like she disappeared."  
Carlisle looked carefully at Jane. He narrowed his eyes, dark with unfulfilled thirst. His hand immediately found a place under his chin, giving him a thoughtful air as he scrutinized the young vampire.  
"Jane," he said finally, "Could you do something for me?" At her immediate nod he asked, "Could you tell me just what you were thinking before this happened?" His gaze told Jane that he was intrigued by this…whatever it was. Eager to comply, Jane answered at once.  
"I was thinking of my brother," she replied- much to the obvious perplexity of Carlisle as well as his son. "He used to have this nickname for me: The Invisible Girl. When I was human, I could sit for hours and remain unnoticed. I used to do it a lot, I think…I can't quite remember."  
Carlisle's gaze was knowing and sympathetic. If anything, the man understood how Jane felt about all of this. He knew that her human memories were frustratingly fuzzy and hard to reach. He gave a soft, encouraging smile that willed Jane to continue.  
"When we ran into the deer, I accidently stepped on a twig. The deer heard it and looked up- he would have looked straight at me. But his movements were slower than those of my eyes, so I could think before it had even finished moving its head. I thought of my brother…and I wished to be invisible. The next thing I knew, Edward was asking me where I'd gone."  
All three family members had identical expressions of fascinated surprise on their faces. Carlisle's, however, quickly turned into one of triumph.  
"I think I know what has happened," he said, a smile on his face. "You see, I have some theories about our kind- ones I've been pondering for awhile now. You know of course, Jane, that there are some vampires with 'extra senses' of sorts- like Edward's ability to read minds. I believe that that when we are turned, some carry their most prominent human traits over with them, and they are strengthened dramatically. Edward, for example, was probably already very in-tune with others when he was a human. He probably had a knack for seeing people and guessing their thoughts- and now, that has manifested itself in this."  
"From what you just told me, it seems like you were able to make yourself unseen when you were a human. You had the ability to remain unseen, to hide and observe without anybody noticing you. And now, I'm fairly certain that is what has caused this. Basically, it is my belief that- if you practice it enough- you will be able to become invisible at will."  
At that, Jane was speechless.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Concentrate, Jane," Edward said patiently.  
Jane sighed in response, and briefly buried her face in her hands. Edward caught a string of her thoughts.  
_Stupid, useless skill_, she was thinking angrily.  
"It's not useless," he replied. "It's actually quite handy for you. But you have to practice it- come on, you're almost there."  
This had been the scene for a couple of weeks now. Each day, Edward would practice with Jane, so that she could learn to focus her ability and use her invisibility at well. It had been stressful so far, but she was always willing to practice. And he was patient. Plus, there were worse things he could be doing with his time.  
Over the past weeks, Jane had quickly become Edward's closest friend. They talked endlessly, sharing everything about their lives. He found that he could talk to Jane more easily than he could anyone else, including Carlisle. And she talked to him as well, despite her shyness- though Edward could not see what she had to be shy about. She was fascinating.  
And the fascination had not lessened a bit- even now, as he helped Jane by concentrating on her through the medium of her thoughts.  
_Alright- focus_, she told herself sternly. _Think of silence, think of the deer, think of Robert_. A blurry picture of a tall young man- the one that Edward and Carlisle had found next to Jane the day they discovered her- appeared in her mind, the vision clouded over as if covered by a veil. It was a familiar image- Jane had thought of it a lot over the past few weeks in practice.  
_'I didn't even see you there, Janie,'_ the image said in her mind. _'Sometimes, I think you really are invisible.' _The thoughts continued, broken up randomly. _'Hey, Invisible Girl'…concentrate, Jane…deer running through the forest…_  
And then…nothing. Silence. It was as if Edward had been listening to a radio station, and then someone suddenly switched it off. He could still hear the background buzz of everyone else's thoughts, but from Jane he got nothing. And when he looked up to find her, it was as he expected- she was gone.  
"Jane, you did it!" he said triumphantly. "Now, concentrate on that feeling- see how long you can make it last."  
For the next few minutes, Edward waited. And about five minutes later, Jane came back into both his sight and his mind. It wasn't terribly long, but it was five minutes more than she'd mastered before- and that was definitely something to be proud of.  
And he was- he was very proud of her. Proud…and a little relieved when she appeared once again.  
He couldn't quite describe it, but Edward was slightly disoriented when Jane was invisible. It was difficult to explain, but he'd felt rather edgy during that entire time. It made him feel strange- almost nervous- to not only not be able to see Jane, but also to not have his usual insight into her mind. It was frustrating. He was much more at ease when she was completely with him.  
"How did I do?" Jane asked, her slightly dark red eyes hopeful.  
"You were brilliant," Edward replied with a smile. "Too brilliant, I think. I've discovered that I can't read your mind whenever you turn invisible- which obviously means you're going to have to stop doing it." He winked at her.  
Jane rolled her eyes, but laughed. "Of course I will," she replied sarcastically. "After all of this practice, I think I'll just forget about it."  
He chuckled, and threw an arm around her thin shoulders to lead her inside.  
"Come on, Invisible Girl," he said. "That's enough practice for one day. Carlisle and Esme want to hunt- we can continue this tomorrow."  
Jane nodded, and the two went into the house.

Within a few months, Jane had her skill perfected. To Edward's equal delight and irritation, she could now turn invisible at will. Whenever she liked, she could remove herself from everybody's view- and from his mind.  
His perplexity during these times had not been alleviated over time. In fact, the exact opposite seemed to be the case.  
Each time she hid herself, Edward grew tense and uneasy- and it seemed to be getting worse each time. It made him nervous, not being able to hear her thoughts. Sure it was stupid, but it was almost like he got nervous about the fact that he subconsciously did not know for sure that she was safe when he had absolutely no access to her.  
_That is ridiculous_, he told himself. But nonetheless, it was true.  
He figured it had to do with the fact that he and Jane had become so close in the past few months. He could easily call her his best friend, and know through her thoughts that she thought the same of him. They shared everything, even when Edward wasn't reading her mind. He told her every blurred, dim memory he had of his human life- more than he'd told even Carlisle or Esme. He spoke for Jane when she didn't feel like talking, and she let him in on whatever she was thinking. Edward had never in his life become so close to someone so quickly.  
It was Carlisle that took the most notice of the bond between him and Jane. And even though Edward tried to keep out of his father's thoughts, he could not help but notice a few that specifically involved him.  
_I wonder…_thought Carlisle one evening. _Jane and Edward do seem to spend a lot of their time together. Could there perhaps be more than friendship there?_  
That afternoon, they had one again spent the afternoon practicing Jane's skill. Sure, she did not really need to work on it anymore, but it had become a sort of tradition that neither seemed willing to give up. After Jane had returned to visibility, Edward had jokingly run into her "to see if she was really there." She had then laughed and hit him playfully across the arm, to which he wrapped the arm around her waist and flipped her upside down. The rest of the afternoon was spent in similar fashion, doing nothing but laughing and playing games.  
Now, they sat in their living room, and Edward could hear Carlisle's thoughts drifting down from his study one floor up.  
He wondered if Carlisle could be right. Esme too, for that matter- she had been thinking similar things about him and Jane for a while now.  
They definitely got along well, that much was obvious. Edward easily considered the girl to be his best friend. He could talk to her, and her to him. He felt something for the girl that he had never felt before. He was very protective of her- unnecessarily so, but nonetheless protective. It was that strange connection between them- the one that had drawn him to her in the first place, his compulsion to have Carlisle change her. There had just always been something about that girl that drew him in.  
And it wasn't only Edward that was drawn to Jane (he was just the most obvious about it). Carlisle and Esme loved her just as much- sometimes more- than they did Edward. They welcomed her into the family immediately, and Edward could see that they thought of her as another daughter. Jane's bond was strong with all of the Cullens- within her first months, she was definitely one of them.

Immortality causes one to think of time in much different ways than regular humans do. Days, for example, seem insignificant. One flows into the next with hardly a moment's notice- especially when one can never sleep. The years seem to fly by- which is exactly what happened in the case of the Cullens.  
Before anyone could even realize it, the year was 1933. The United States found itself in the middle of the Great Depression, and the Cullens found themselves in the middle of New York. They'd moved there a few years before, and had settled into their new routine quite well.  
It was September now, and they'd been having a breezy end to summer- but it was filled with sun, which meant that the family spent much of their time together and out of the eye of everyone else in their town. One particular day, Edward and Jane spent a lazy night lying in a field near the Adirondack Mountains- generally where they went whenever the weather was nice- and that was where they found themselves now, as the dawn broke over the horizon.  
"So Jane," Edward said conversationally, breaking a content silence that had fallen between them. "I have a question for you."  
"Oh?" Jane asked, sitting up in the tall grass. When she did, the reflection from her skin showed exactly why they did not go near humans in on nice days.  
Their skin sparkled in the sun- it was like there were millions of tiny crystals embedded in them, reflecting and shimmering in the light. At first, Jane had been completely shocked by this discovery- just as Edward had been when he first found that out. But by now, both were completely used to it. It wasn't such a 'freak' thing anymore. In fact, (though Edward would not admit it), he had never thought of it as being a 'freak' thing with Jane. He actually found the sparkling skin to be sort of…beautiful, on her.  
"I was wondering," he went on, breaking himself out of his own thoughts, "Whether- now that you're not a newborn anymore- you were still faster than me."  
She arched a thin dark eyebrow, the hint of a smirk on her lips.  
Edward continued. "I was wondering if you'd like to place a bit of a wager. We race to the mountain and back. If you win…you have complete control over me for a month. I'll do anything- even tell Esme what really happened to her favorite vase." He grimaced slightly at that. About a month before, he had broken that vase, then told Esme that he had no idea what had happened to it. Jane had been pestering him ever since to just tell her the truth.  
At his words, Jane smiled broadly- but then turned it into a serious expression and folded her thin arms across her chest. "And if you win…?"  
He thought about it for a minute, trying to figure something out, before grinning. "If I win…you don't use your invisibility for a month." _Hah!_  
She frowned at him. "What? No! How about a week?"  
Edward shook his head, beaming in triumph. "Sorry- a month is my final offer. Why, not feeling too confident about your abilities?"  
Jane rolled her eyes. "That is ridiculous!" she huffed. "I could win a race against you any day! Let's go, then. To the mountain and back." She immediately crouched into a ready position.  
He chuckled at her anxiousness, and crouched down beside her. "Alright then- on your mark, get set…go!"  
She was off like a shot, but Edward wasn't far behind her. He caught up quickly, both of them running neck and neck towards the mountain. He reached the mountain a split second after she did, and touched the base of it before running back in the opposite direction. Jane sped up, and Edward followed suit- not exactly eager to lose against her. But he seemed to have underestimated her abilities, because Jane was fast- _very_ fast. In fact, she was about to beat him as they neared their 'finish line'…until Edward reached out his arms, grabbed her around the waist, and tackled her to the ground with a triumphant laugh.  
"Hey!" Jane cried indignantly. "That isn't fair, you cheated!"  
Edward chuckled. "Sorry," he shrugged, not sorry in the least bit. He offered up a sheepish smile. "Call it a draw?"  
Jane grumbled a string of angry thoughts that Edward only heard in her head. _Stupid, unethical, vampire idiot_, she cursed internally.  
He laughed out loud. "Oh, am I now?"  
She frowned at him. "Stop reading my thoughts! I can always stop you myself, you know- and don't think I won't do it!"  
Edward just chuckled again at the cute little wrinkles that appeared between her eyebrows whenever Jane was angry with him. The girl was far too much fun to tease, even if her threats were quite real (she knew he did not like it whenever she took herself out of his sight and mind).  
She huffed and leapt up, trying to make herself seem taller- to no avail, considering Edward's eleven-inch height advantage. He tried not to laugh anymore at Jane's indignant expression, but instead jumped around her, grabbed her from behind, and began tickling her mercilessly in an effort to get her to stop scowling.  
She put up a fight, obviously trying to force the smile from her face, but it did not work for long. Within a few minutes, Edward had her giggling and swatting at him to try and get him to stop.  
"Fine, we'll call it a draw!" Jane laughed- had she been human, she surely would have suffocated by now, but of course she was not out of breath at all. "And I won't block you out. Now, will you let me go?"  
Edward was on the verge of saying "no" and continuing his rather amusing game, but it was then that Carlisle appeared in front of them. Edward had been so busy, he hadn't even noticed him approaching. Immediately, he released Jane and they turned to face the other vampire.  
"Good morning," Carlisle greeted them. He smiled softly, but his eyes were pained. It was obvious that something was not right.  
"Carlisle?" Edward questioned. "What is wrong?"  
The eldest vampire sighed. "I need you both to come with me," he replied. "Very early this morning, I found something. Back in town, there was a crime- unreported, but a crime nonetheless. I only know because I followed the scent of the blood down the street until I found…what happened."  
Edward and Jane looked first at one another and then back to Carlisle, their identical expressions questioning.  
"It was a girl," Carlisle continued. "She had been attacked- obviously by more than one person. And she had been left in an alleyway to die. She was on her way to a certain death, that much was obvious- mere moments from it, in fact. But I brought her back to the house. And I…well, I decided to save her."  
Edward once again looked to Jane. He didn't even bother to read her thoughts- they were as jumbled as his own. But there wasn't time to think just then. There would be time for that later. For now, they turned to follow Carlisle, and together they ran back to their house.

The wait for this girl's transformation was longer than Jane's had been. Although, that was perhaps because Edward did not feel the same captivation with this one as he had with the other girl- the one that now sat at his side in the living room, both of them wondering what would happen when this new girl awoke.  
He also did not spend every moment at this girl's side, like he'd done with Jane. And to anyone else, that might have made it seem like the process would go faster because of it, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on him. When he'd sat waiting for Jane to awaken, the time seemed to pass like mere seconds. He'd found himself staring at her lifeless face for hours wondering what she would be like. She had been so interesting, even in her death-like state. This girl- this stranger- was, for some reason, not quite so interesting.  
And now, as Edward sat with his best friend and- what, adoptive sister of sorts?- he found himself exceedingly, unnervingly _bored_.  
"I wonder what she'll be like," Jane said, breaking the silence.  
Edward shrugged. "I wonder what our family will be like, with another newborn in it," he replied. He did not exactly relish the thought of harboring a bloodthirsty newborn in the house. _Why_ did his father have such a compulsion to 'save' so many people, anyway? In Edward's opinion, their household had been fine just the way it was.  
Edward's boredom was, however, broken before he could brood much longer over this subject. It was the end of the third day- almost onto a fourth- and Carlisle appeared from his study, looking at the two on the couch with an unreadable expression on his face.  
His words were simple and few. "She's awake."  
They were immediately up, and Edward followed behind Jane into Carlisle's study in order to meet this new girl.  
Well, she was fairly good-looking, even Edward had to grudgingly admit that. With long locks of blonde hair, perfectly proportioned features, and an obviously tall, shapely figure (it was obvious even though she was sitting down), it was plain to see that even as a human, this girl would have been considered beautiful.  
It was too…perfect, though. She seemed more like a model for what someone's idea of perfection should be than an actual living girl. Plus, if this was supposed to be the ideal standard of beauty, then it certainly didn't appeal to him. And she also had a facial expression that was rather off-putting: a tipped chin and wrinkling of the nose, like she was sure she was too good for everyone else.  
"I've explained to her what's happened," Carlisle said. He turned towards the blonde girl. "But why don't you introduce yourself, and tell us whatever you can remember about your human life?"  
The new vampire gave a sour look at the word 'human,' but opened her mouth to speak anyway. "My name is Rosalie Hale," she began. "I'm from nearby, in Rochester- I lived there all my life…"  
But Edward did not listen to the rest of her speech. He had been too distracted by a string of Carlisle's thoughts that he'd overheard, and that he was now following with rather irate interest.  
_I wonder if she will make a good mate for Edward_, his adoptive father was thinking. _For so long, Esme and I wondered if perhaps Jane would be his mate, but their relationship seems more along the line of friendship, or of siblings. Maybe this Rosalie is the answer to that, for Edward. And maybe a few years in the future, we can find somebody for Jane as well…_  
Edward let out a low, rumbling growl- his first audible reaction to Carlisle's thoughts. Everyone else in the room turned to look at him- the girl, Rosalie, stopping her speech for the first time.  
"Is something wrong, son?" Carlisle asked, his face turned to an appropriately worried expression. Edward immediately grew more annoyed.  
"It's nothing," he replied through clenched teeth.  
He couldn't even explain why he was so annoyed, anyway. But it probably had something to do with the fact that while he'd been listening to Carlisle's thoughts, he had over heard Rosalie's as well.  
Her mind was filled with vapid, shallow thoughts. In the two minutes that Edward had been listening in, he'd caught strands about her beauty, her old human friends, and the admirers she'd had in her former life. There was absolutely nothing of real substance in her brain. _And Carlisle wants me to spend eternity with her?_

As they discovered during the next few weeks after her transformation, Rosalie Hale proved to be rather impossible.  
She was especially bitter about being a vampire- she did not want to be that way at all, and pined endlessly for her human life. But even so, that did not stop her from acting on the…baser instincts…of her nature.  
The first thing she did, after being introduced to the Cullens, was go back to Rochester to seek out a specific group of people. She found the men that had attacked her the night she almost died- her ex-fiancé as well as some of his friends- and sought her revenge on each one of them. She killed them all, saving the slowest and most painful death for her ex-fiancé Royce.  
After that, she fell into the 'vegetarian' lifestyle, and never touched another human. She stayed with the Cullen family, not wanting to leave and go off on her own (much to Edward's annoyance). And even after spending significant amounts of time with her, Edward still couldn't stand the girl.  
Carlisle had 'subtly' brought up the idea of Rosalie being his mate after a couple of weeks, immediately causing Edward to become angry once again. And the more Carlisle talked- or even thought- about it, the more annoyed Edward became. The thought of being with Rosalie frankly horrified him.  
And Rosalie wasn't exactly happy either. But her annoyance stemmed not from the suggestion, but rather from Edward's reluctance to be with her.  
_What does he not see in me_? She thought angrily. _This has never happened before- he should be worshipping me! Not that I have any sort of romantic feelings for him either…but that does not matter!_  
Her thoughts went on as such, actually making Edward chuckle somewhat at her disgruntled confusion. She could not see what he did not find attractive about her, and therefore could not understand why he would not want to be with her. It seemed that she placed all of her worth in being beautiful- and the fact that Edward wanted more than just beauty did not even seem to register in her mind.  
Meanwhile, he had noticed that Jane had become more and more agitated as the weeks went on. And he did not spend as much time with her as usual, because of the disruption in their routine that the addition of Rosalie brought, so he could not talk to her in the house. He meant to ask her on one of their hunts, but every time they went out Jane used her invisibility to block him out and run off on her own. It confused Edward to no end.  
Jane grew colder and more distant as the weeks turned into months. And Carlisle and Esme still wondered about the possibility of Edward and Rosalie being together, which annoyed him greatly. He wanted to talk to his best friend about it- but she was never anywhere to be found.  
Every time he went looking for her, it seemed that Jane was off doing something on her own. Sometimes she was in the middle of an 'important discussion' with Esme, other times she was locked in her room with her books. And during hunts, she was generally always locked away from his access by her ability. That invisibility thing was _really _starting to get on his nerves…  
And the worst part was, he could not figure out what was wrong with her. She was no longer acting like the fun, wonderful Jane that he'd come to cherish so much in the past eight years. The best friend that was almost like a little sister to him was now distant, removing herself from him at every turn. It confused and saddened Edward- he only wanted to know _why_, so that he could fix it.  
Sometimes, he caught snippets of her mind when she was not invisible. But it was always fragments, things like _Stupid, ridiculous thought…why I'm even thinking about it…of course this would happen…_would flash through her mind, usually just leaving Edward more confused than he'd been before.

For months, he waited for Jane to return to normal. He tried to tolerate Rosalie in the meantime, but he really just wanted the other girl back, and everything back to the way it was. But that was easier said than done.  
One night, Jane called a family meeting. It was surprising for her to do so, both because usually only Carlisle ever called family meetings (except for Esme, once in awhile), and because Jane didn't like giving addresses to the entire group all at once anyway. The idea of her calling them all together was very, very strange.  
When they all sat around the dining room table (a prop, more than anything else), Jane stood up and looked them all in the eye. She met Edward's gaze for an especially long time, and then spoke exactly two words:  
"I'm leaving."


	5. Chapter 5

** Chapter 5**

_Alaska. No, I was just there a few years ago. Okay then…Norway? Yech, too many weird hours. I need something with a more normal schedule of daylight hours. Okay, how about-  
_"Hey- lady? I asked where you were going."_  
_Jane was broken from her thoughts by a deep male voice. She turned, and faced the cabbie that had spoken to her._  
_"Oh, I'm sorry," she replied, adding a smile to soften his demeanor. It must have worked- he seemed temporarily stunned. "The airport, please."_  
_"Absolutely, right away," he replied quickly, still looking bewildered as he revved the engine and they sped off._  
_Jane chuckled inwardly. She still got a kick out of how much people seemed to be dazzled by her presence. They always seemed a bit astounded by the ethereal beauty that came along with her vampire nature. It was odd, really. Even seventy-eight years after her transformation, she still wasn't used to it._  
_As the taxi left the block where her most current home had been (the one she was leaving now), she mused over how much things had- and hadn't- changed in the last nearly-eighty years._  
_It was 2004, now. Had she lived a normal human life, she would have most likely been dead by now. And while that somewhat baffled her, she often found herself grateful for immortality. After all, the changes she had seen in her never-ending life had been so _interesting_._  
_The taxi passed her most recent high school. She laughed, thinking of it. She had now been in high school countless times- college, a few times as well. She had a degree in Literature, French, Music, and Law. Most of the time, she just went through school for fun. After all, what else was there to do with so much free time?_  
_The decision to entire high school again had been one she'd thought of to appear 'normal' to her neighbors. Many were annoyingly nosy, and got suspicious if she was not at school during the normal 8-3 hours. So in order to seem like any other sixteen-year-old, she'd entered into high schools in her various towns._  
_This one hadn't been any different than the last one- and that hadn't been any different than the one before that. Sure, the fashions and the music and the fads changed, but essentially it was the same makeup: there were the cliques, the politics of who-knows-whom, the parties and football games and important events that should make up a normal teenager's life. _  
_Jane never involved herself in any of these things._  
_She didn't make friends, and kept her distance from everybody else. It was surprisingly easy to do. People generally stayed away from her- perhaps knowing subconsciously that she was dangerous to them (though she wasn't, and hadn't been for years now)._  
_She shook her head to clear that thought away. Jane never dwelled too much on thoughts of when she _was_ dangerous to humans- it usually stirred up feelings in her that she would rather not think about._  
_It had been over fifty years since she'd last harmed a human- and she vowed to never go back to it again. When she first left to go out on her own, Jane tried to follow the vegetarian way of life. She hunted animals, thinking nothing of it- after all, that was how she'd always nourished herself._  
_But then, about ten years later, she began to realize that she was her own person now. She could do what she wanted- who was to stop her? And she had never tasted human blood…so she was curious._  
_The taste was as she expected- sweet, fragrant, and absolutely delicious. It was completely satisfying, filling her and leaving her stronger than ever. It provided her with the complete nourishment that animal blood never had. This was her nature- it was what vampires were made for._  
_But about seven years later, something broke through Jane's frenzy and got into her conscience. She saw- really _saw_- the humans that she was so thoughtlessly killing. The man who had just left work, on his way home to his wife and children. The woman who lived with her sister, because both confided most in the other. The soldier back from overseas, the nurse in between shifts at the hospital. Each one was a life she was taking. And she had to stop._  
_It was difficult, but Jane found the willpower to go back to her vampire-vegetarianism. Her eyes slowly turned back to gold, after having been an alarming shade of red for all those years. She grew more subdued, no longer acting on her basest instincts. And she joined the world of the humans not as a murderer, invisible in the shadows, but as one of them._  
_From the fifties on, she lived hidden in plain sight amongst the rest of society. She moved often, whenever she felt that people would start getting suspicious from her lack of aging. She changed her age, her birth date, her name. Every few years, she would pick another place to live. She'd been everywhere, traveling from place to place whenever she wanted to. She was completely independent- and had been for almost the entire time after she'd left…them._  
_Jane did not allow herself to think of the Cullens often. If she did, it brought about a strong ache to her dead heart. But every so often, something would happen that caused her to have a fleeting thought of her old family._  
_Sometimes she would pass by a hospital and see a flash of blonde hair in a white lab coat, immediately making her think about Carlisle. Or she would be in a store, and see a piece of furniture or artwork that would immediately have her internally saying, "Esme would love this." Or the opening notes of _Clair de Lune_ would come through the radio, and she would recognize it almost before the song even started, because it was Edward's favorite-_  
No_._  
_Jane would not think of Edward. Every time she did, that ache in her chest would twist into a sharp stab of pain that felt like what she imagined the knife must have felt like, plunging into her side on the night she was supposed to die._  
_She missed him terribly. He was the closest friend she'd ever had- and really the_ first_ friend she'd ever had. She'd been able to talk to Edward about anything, and he understood her even when she said nothing (though that was sometimes a curse, more so than a blessing). He'd helped her through her newborn stage of vampirism, and went hunting with her every time she needed it- even if he wasn't thirsty. And he was protective of her, even though she didn't really need protecting. He was like the big brother she'd needed after losing Robert. And though now she hardly even remembered what the sadness of losing her human brother had been like, the memories of Edward were fresh in her mind, and still very painful._  
_But over time, she had learned to push those thoughts aside, and had actually gotten rather good at it. It helped more when she was invisible, and retreated completely from the outside world. A lot of times, she found herself using her ability more often than not. Being invisible was comforting._  
_Actually, had she not been in her current position, Jane probably would have been using her ability at that moment. She would most likely be running through the woods, feeling her visible body disappearing until she became as weightless and free as the wind, able to go where she wanted, do as she pleased._  
_But of course, she could not. She was not in the woods, she was in a cab, staring at the houses and strip malls and offices that made up her most recently inhabited town in Montana (a state she would not be returning to anytime soon). And she was on her way to the airport, so that she could find a new place to settle down for a couple of years before uprooting and doing it all over again._  
_"Um…ma'am?" the cab driver said hesitantly. "We're here."_  
_It was then that Jane realized the car had stopped._  
_"Oh," she replied, surprised. She'd been so deep in thought for the entire drive, she'd hardly realized that they were even going anywhere._  
_Handing the driver some money without bothering to ask for change, Jane grabbed the one suitcase that contained everything she would bring with her out of the cab's trunk, and walked inside the airport building._  
_There were screens everywhere, telling people which flights were arriving when, which would depart from where, and who was boarding or leaving or delayed for the next twenty minutes. Jane stared at them, trying to pick a place that she might want to visit for the next couple of years. Finally, she shrugged and went up to the first available ticket counter._  
_"Hello," she greeted the middle-aged blonde agent behind the desk. "I was wondering which flights are leaving soon and have an opening I can get on."_  
_The woman blinked at her for a moment, prompting Jane to wonder if she'd spoken too quickly for the human to comprehend. But after a second, she seemed to gather herself together and clicked away at her computer._  
_"Well- alright," she said after a moment. "Let's see, we have one to New York LaGuardia leaving at twelve-thirty, another to Phoenix at twelve-fifty-five, and one to Seattle at one-ten…"_  
_"I'll take the one to Seattle," Jane said immediately, and whipped a shiny silver credit card out of her bag. She smiled at the agent. "Thanks so much."_  
_Seattle. Jane had never been there before, but it was one of the rainiest cities in the continental US, prompting her to wonder _why_ she had never been there before. Once she got there, she could figure out where she wanted to settle down for the next few years- just like she'd done so many times before._  
_She smiled softly to herself, calm now that she was sitting in her airplane seat as it taxied on the runway. She was always calmer once she'd figured out where she wanted to go, and had a plan._  
_"Been to Seattle before?" asked a friendly voice next to her. Jane looked to her side to locate the owner of the voice._  
_The woman in the seat was smiling, a motherly smile that- with a small pang- reminded Jane vaguely of Esme. She was probably around sixty years old, with graying blonde hair that curled softly under her ears. She wore a white sweatshirt that gaped a bit at her comfortably round middle, and at her feet was a large bag filled with what looked like knitting supplies._  
_"No," Jane answered with a smile in return. The woman looked friendly- like a grandmother she'd never had. "Have you?"_  
_"Oh, yes," she replied. "I go up there a few times a year- my daughter and her family live there, so I go out to see my grandchildren." She glanced down, taking note of Jane's lack of carryon bag. "What are you going there for, dear? You visiting someone? A boyfriend, perhaps?" She added a sly wink._  
_Jane laughed softly. She decided to indulge the woman- let her relive her youth for a bit. "No, no boyfriend," she said with a shrug._  
_The woman's eyebrows raised, and she looked Jane up and down. "I don't believe that," she said incredulously. "A pretty girl like you? Surely the boys are falling all over you."_  
_She shrugged again. "I'm pretty shy, I suppose."_  
_The woman shook her head, clucking her tongue in a disbelieving manner. "Well honey, all I have to say is I'm glad I'm married, because if a girl like you doesn't have a boy, then there's certainly no hope for the rest of us!"_  
_Jane laughed, and suppressed the urge to tell the woman exactly _why_ having a boyfriend- or even getting to be friends with humans, boys or girls- wouldn't exactly be the most brilliant idea on the planet. Instead, she asked the woman about her grandchildren, which predictably set her off talking for almost the entire rest of the two-hour plane ride._  
_Once they landed in Seattle, Jane said goodbye to her new friend from the plane, wished her and her family well, and gathered up her things to load into one of the taxis, waiting outside in the misty rain. _  
_"You need help with that?" the cab driver asked, clearly measuring the size of her giant suitcase versus her tiny frame._  
_But Jane shook her head and lifted her suitcase effortlessly into the trunk of the cab, making the driver's eyebrows shoot up in shock._  
_"Weight training," she answered his silent question._  
_He just nodded and got into the driver's seat of the car. She giggled inwardly. She'd always gotten a slight kick out of startling people like that, bringing forth hints of her strength or speed whenever people were positive that she was as scrawny as she looked. It always gave them a healthy dose of shock._  
_"Where to?" the driver asked._  
_Jane paused for a moment. _Where to?_ She had no idea where she wanted to go. She glanced quickly through the booklet she held in her hand- a packet of information about Washington that she'd planned to look at later. _  
_Thinking quickly, she rattled off the name of a car dealership that she'd seen an ad for at the airport, and proceeded to spend the duration of the ride there pretending to take a nap.

A few hours later, Jane was sitting in the driver's seat of a new silver Volkswagen Rabbit. She pulled it in gear and drove off, headed towards goodness only knew where.  
It was a bit later, after she'd stopped for gas and read through the packet of information she'd gotten at the airport, that she finally figured out where she wanted to go. There was, in between the information about Mount Rainier, and shopping in Seattle or Tacoma or Olympia, and the history of Starbucks coffee, a little section that mentioned Port Angeles and the surrounding areas. And one of those surrounding areas, apparently the rainiest town in the US, stuck out in Jane's mind- a little town of 3,000 people called Forks.  
_Now, there's a strange name for a town_, she'd thought. _Who names a place after a piece of silverware_? She had to go there.  
It was a fairly long drive, but she had nothing else to do during that time. She was just happy that it was cloudy all the time, so that she could actually be outside in the daytime. It got tiresome, having to hide in the sun.  
Finally, Jane passed the sign that showed she had arrived in Forks. She smiled a bit, seeing it. She couldn't quite explain it, but there was something…different about Forks. Like the air was charged with a strange undercurrent of electricity. It made her feel a bit more _aware_, somehow. Aware of what, she didn't know, but of _something_.  
The town was small, but it would work. After all, she would not be spending too much time amongst its inhabitants anyway. Forks High School, which she decided she would attend, was right off the highway- along with just about everything else. She would need to find a house to live in…but that could be taken care of later. For now, she wanted to explore.  
At the edge of town, she found a trail on the side of the road that led into the woods, and parked her car in the small parking lot next to it. The forest went on for miles, and Jane was eager to explore it.  
She ran for what could have been hours, but felt like just minutes. It was exhilarating, running through a new area. The air smelled different- a mix of the fresh rain, the damp trees, and the animals that inhabited the forest. Plus, the air was still charged with whatever it was Jane had felt when she first drove into Forks. She felt energized, and happier than she'd been in the past eighty years.  
She ran for a few miles more, and then abruptly stopped. There was a clearing in the distance- perhaps a couple of miles off- where she heard people walking around.  
_Who would live around here?_ She wondered. It was technically outside of town, and pretty far from everything else. But as she listened more, she realized that these sounds weren't ones that normal humans would make. They were too soft, and too quick. And then she caught a hint of the scent on the air, and immediately started. _Vampires_. There were other ones here besides her.  
She was in the middle of wondering whether or not to introduce herself to the other vampires, so that they were each aware of the other's presence, when her ears picked up the sound of swift, even running. Well, it looked like the decision had been made for her, because within the next minute they would cross paths.  
The first thing she saw was a little black-haired girl, a bit shorter than herself. Actually, she looked a bit like Jane, but with short, spiky black hair a few shades darker than Jane's own (which she wore in long, soft curls to her waist). The girl seemed to dance, more so than run, as she approached Jane. And she had an excited grin on her face that Jane felt was common for her.  
The second thing that she saw was the boy behind the other girl. He was familiar- very, _very_ familiar. And as soon as she saw him, Jane felt that had she been human she would have fainted dead away.  
The two approached, and Jane spoke first, too shocked to say more than one word. "Edward?!"  
"Jane!" Edward replied, a huge grin on his face. Jane tried not to focus on the way her stomach seemed to flip at his smile, instead concentrating on the way he did not even seem surprised to see her. But she could not even dwell on that for very long, because before she could even get another word out, she had been plucked off of the ground and wrapped in a huge, crushing hug.


	6. Chapter 6

** Chapter 6**

_ "Edward," came a tinkling, bell-like voice from up the stairs. "Edward, I have to talk to you."  
Edward stood up from his piano bench and walked up the stairs, in search of the owner of that voice. He found her in Carlisle's study, sitting on the leather couch against the wall. Alice, his adoptive sister, sat with a photo album in her lap, her golden eyes wide with something like shock.  
Alice was (though he would never admit this), his favorite of his 'siblings.' She had come to them about thirty years before, along with her mate Jasper. She had an extra sense, one that brought her to the Cullens. Alice could see the future- though it was flexible, changing whenever somebody changed their mind about something. She saw herself meeting Jasper, and then both of them with the Cullen family- and they had been there ever since.  
From then on, Edward and Alice had gotten on amazingly well. She was a lot more low maintenance than Rosalie (who still lived with the family, along with her own mate Emmett), and therefore usually easier to get along with. Edward loved Rosalie, really, but sometimes his blonde sister got on his last nerve.  
And Alice's visions had proven to come in quite handy for the whole family- but especially Edward- over the past thirty years. He had asked her, one day, to keep tabs on a specific person, to keep watch over her every so often. And so far, Alice had kept good on her promise to him.  
Now, he sat down next to her in their father's study. "What is it, Alice?" he asked, furrowing his brow at her expression.  
"I…don't know," she sighed, frustrated. "I can't see anything clearly. But something is coming- a change. And I just felt like I had to tell you."_

That had been three weeks before. Ever since then, Edward had questioned Alice every day, asking if she'd seen anything else. But her answer was always the same: "Nothing yet, just…a change."_  
_Until earlier that day. Edward had been in his room, reclining on his black leather couch and listening to one of his CDs, when a wide-eyed Alice burst in and turned off the stereo._  
_"It's her," she said, a strange tenor in her wind-chime voice. "Jane, the girl you asked me to keep watch of all these years."_  
_Immediately, Edward stood up. "What about her?" he demanded. "Everything is alright, isn't it?" How could anything be wrong? Jane was technically indestructible. Though whenever they'd been together, she had seemed fragile, and in need of protection. Had something happened? If it had, Edward would not know what to think…_  
_"She's fine, Edward," Alice immediately pacified him. "Actually, she's more than fine. She just made a decision ten minutes ago…she's coming here."

The entire afternoon, Alice pestered Edward with questions about Jane. What was she like? How long was she with them? Why did she leave? Edward answered each one, with 'help' from Rosalie.  
"Oh, _she's_ coming back?" was actually the first thing that Rosalie had said when she heard the news. From then, she'd proceeded to sulk for the remainder of the afternoon.  
Edward had grimaced at the words. He remembered that Jane and Rosalie had not exactly parted on the best terms- nor had they been very close when they were living together. Actually, Jane- though she was naturally a quiet person- had always been especially distant whenever she was around Rosalie. Edward did not even know why Jane disliked her (having been unable to read her mind during most of that brief period of time), but nonetheless, it stood true.  
"She hated me," Rosalie had said indignantly. "I don't even know _why_; I had barely even met the girl."  
"I'm sure she did not hate you, Rose," Edward countered. "She was always shy, she didn't talk to anyone very much."  
Rosalie simply shrugged and ignored the topic for the whole afternoon. She simply refused to acknowledge anything about Jane's apparent impending arrival. Alice, however, had completely different thoughts about the whole thing. She could not wait to meet Jane.  
When Edward set out into the woods, as Alice's vision had shown, the little black-haired vampire went with him. She practically bounced the entire way there, she was so excited. Edward shook his head- sometimes living with Alice was like living with an over-sugared child.  
He looked for her in the forest- at first, there was nothing.  
"A few more minutes," Alice said. He waited impatiently. Then he started to hear her voice in his head, coming back to him after all these years. And then he saw her in front of him.  
It was almost like those eighty years had never passed. Jane was right there, and for a moment he was back in New York with his best friend, running races to and from the mountains. She was essentially the same, as expected, but there was also something somehow _different_ about her.  
Her hair was longer, for starters. It had been just past her shoulders the last time Edward saw her, and now fell to her waist. And she naturally wore different clothes. She was beautiful, of course- every bit as beautiful as he remembered- but there was also something about her that had changed. He couldn't quite pinpoint it…perhaps it was something in her eyes…but she had definitely changed in the past eighty years.  
Then she saw him, a look of pure shock written across her face, and said his name as if trying to admit to herself that he was real. He'd reciprocated by saying her name in return, and then wrapping her in a hug- probably to prove to himself that _she_ was real. He had to convince himself that, yes, this _was_ Jane- and no, she would not just disappear if he closed his eyes (he hoped).  
Edward took in the scent of her, and it was just as he recalled: fresh, like clean sheets and spring rain and a burst of summer sunshine in the dead middle of winter. It made him realize how much he had actually been aching for her all these years, missing the girl he could confide in more than anyone in the world, the girl that had been at his side constantly for almost ten years straight.  
She hugged him back, her thin arms tight around his neck. It felt good to have her there, comforting and…warm, somehow. They parted after their drawn-out embrace, and settled for just looking at one another in awe.  
He wanted to ask Jane a million questions. What had she been doing since he last saw her? Where had she gone? _Why_ had she gone? There were so many things he wanted to learn. But just as he was about to speak, Alice decided to announce her own neglected presence.  
"Hi!" she chirped cheerfully. "I'm Alice. It's so nice to finally meet you!" She bounded over to Jane, and wrapped the startled girl in a hug.  
Jane just looked at Edward, confused, once Alice had parted herself from the other girl. _…What?_ She was thinking, her mind considerably jumbled. Edward smiled a bit, glad to be able to read her mind once again. It was nice to hear her voice.  
"I'll explain everything," he answered her silent question. "We'll go to our house- everyone will be so happy to see you. You can just ignore Alice for now."  
The little black-haired girl stuck her tongue out at that statement, and leapt ahead of Edward and Jane. The three ran back through the woods, to the clearing where the Cullen house stood.  
"Your house is beautiful," Jane said upon seeing the three-story white Victorian where they now resided. "It suits you all. I can especially see Esme liking this place."  
Alice had already gone inside, but Edward smiled.  
"Thank you," he replied. "We all like it very much. You're right- Esme does love it. She did all the decorating, of course."  
"Of course," Jane replied. They both laughed.  
Edward led her inside. As he opened the front door and gestured for her to enter, he subconsciously put a hand at the small of Jane's back to guide her. It must have been a buried human behavior that was just now making its way to the surface, because he did not remember ever doing that before. There was just something about this girl that brought it out in him- he couldn't explain it anymore than he could explain that weird connection he'd felt towards her at first.  
She walked into the house in front of him, and immediately inside Carlisle and Esme stood with eager expressions on their faces.  
"Oh, it's true!" Esme exclaimed. "Alice came in a minute ago and told us that you had come here…oh, I can't even believe it. After all these years, Jane- it is so good to see you again!" She hugged the girl tightly.  
"Our elusive, invisible daughter is back," Carlisle said affectionately. He pulled her into a hug as well. "We have missed you very much, Jane. Edward has been especially sullen."  
Edward shot a quick harsh look at Carlisle. Jane glanced at him with an amused glance. _Still the same after so much time_, she thought laughingly. Edward managed a sheepish smile her way.  
As he looked at her, he could not help but think that she was wrong- things _weren't_ the same. Physically, she looked the same, as did he. They were still the same people, and he still loved her just as he did back then. But there was that undercurrent of something _different_ between them. Perhaps it was just because they had spent so much time apart. Edward just shrugged. He would think about it later. Anyway, whatever it was…it was nice.

"So tell us everything you have been doing, Jane," Esme said that evening as they all sat in the living room. "We want to know everything."  
Rosalie gave a small scoffing noise from the chair in the corner. When she and Jane had greeted one another, their meeting had been rather stilted. Obviously, Rosalie still held some sort of grudge against Jane- who acted inexplicably strange towards the blonde girl- standoffish, and unlike her usual self.  
By that point, Jane had also met the newer members of the family that had not been with them when Jane was. She was introduced once again to Alice, who immediately attached herself to Jane- the two formed a bit of an instant friendship. She met Jasper and Emmett as well, both of which were very happy to meet her. Edward introduced her proudly to both of his brothers, and then sat down on the couch with Jane in between him and Alice.  
"Well, at first I went around the country, never staying in one place for very long. My curiosity got the better of me, and I sort of…fell off the vegetarian wagon." Her face fell slightly at the memories.  
Edward quickly read her mind. "It's okay," he reassured her. "There is no need to feel so guilty about it. Except for Carlisle, we have all done the same thing. Please, do not let it get to you."  
Jane nodded. She figured that Edward had said that in order to appease her guilt, but in truth he had done so for much more selfish reasons: he simply hated to see her upset about anything. It hurt him unbearably.  
"So I lived as such for awhile," she continued, "Feeding off of humans, never living in one town longer than a few weeks at a time. My invisibility came in quite handy, during those years…it is all sort of a blur to me now, though. But after awhile, I suppose I just…developed a conscience. I could not keep killing so many innocent people. So I stopped. And then I began living in places more permanently, changing my age, my name, my story- whatever fit the situation best. I had just decided to move again a couple of days ago, so I went to the airport and randomly picked a flight to Seattle. Then I read about Forks…and the rest is history I suppose."  
The family all talked for a few hours longer, and Jane shared more details of her life. Edward was fascinated by the entire thing. He began to realize what was so different about Jane- she had really become her own person in the past eighty years. After having the Cullens guiding her for the first few years of her new life, she learned to live on her own. She was an independent individual now, so different from the unsure newborn that he had originally known. Essentially, she was still the same Jane- but now, she had really come into her own.

After that night, Esme absolutely insisted that Jane stay with them.  
"I won't hear anything else about it," she said firmly. "You are living here with us, and that is my final decision."  
Carlisle was in complete agreement, both vocally and in his thoughts. Alice was _very_ vocal about her excitement in having Jane stay. Jasper and Emmett were neutral on the subject; both liked Jane, and it did not bother them to have her around. Rosalie, well…she would just have to get over it.  
Edward was completely adamant about Jane's living with the family. He would give anything to have his old best friend be with them again.  
"You have to stay here, Jane," he said to her. "Even if it is only for a year or so, and then you go back off on your own. We all missed you, it would be terrible to see you leave now."  
Eventually, Jane agreed. She took the room across the hallway from Edward's own, parked her Volkswagen in the Cullens' garage, and registered to start that September at Forks High School along with the rest of them.  
"We need a story," Jasper pointed the night before their registration.  
Rosalie groaned. "Eugh, I hate coming up with a story. Someone just think of a simple one- the humans never really care. Foster kids, or something like that."  
"That's actually not a bad idea, Rose," Carlisle replied.  
"But add details, so the humans don't get too suspicious," Emmett added. "Like Rose and Jasper being twins- people seem to buy that one. And say they're like…Esme's niece and nephew or something like that."  
Everyone agreed with that one. Edward just shook his head- coming up with a 'starting-over story' was always interesting in his family.  
"I think that Jane and I should be sisters," Alice piped in. "We look sort of alike. Plus, she could be my younger sister- she looks like she could pass for a year younger." Everyone looked between them, and Carlisle and Esme nodded.  
"That sounds good, Alice," Esme agreed. "You can all start in different places. Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper, you three will be seniors. Alice and Edward, juniors. And Jane, I suppose you shall have to start as a sophomore, if you don't mind."  
"Not at all," Jane replied with a shrug. "It makes sense." _Plus, it's just fun to come up with a story for a whole bunch of people._  
"Trust me, it's not that fun," Edward whispered in her ear. "Just wait until Emmett starts thinking up stories where we were all gypsy children, singing on the sidewalk like the Von Trapps until we were sold to the circus, with no hope of escaping until Carlisle came along…"  
Jane giggled her familiar, delicate laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, Edward saw Alice's eyebrows shoot up. He tried to catch a flash of her thoughts, but they were immediately drowned out by the Korean alphabet, which he knew she was using to keep him out.  
_How odd_…he could not help thinking. But whatever it was, if he knew Alice then he would sooner or later find out whatever it was.

That summer seemed to be passing by much more quickly than any other one ever had. Edward attributed it completely to the addition of Jane in their family. She had quickly become one of them once again, fitting as easily with the Cullens as the rest of them had when they'd joined them. It was quickly becoming like Jane had been with them all the while.  
Alice had taken an especial liking to her. They got along well, and Edward could see even without reading their minds that they had rapidly become close friends- like the sisters they were supposed to be.  
At that moment, as Edward glanced through his bedroom window at their backyard, Alice and Jane were amusing themselves by running races around the clearing. It was made more interesting by the fact that Alice could see where Jane was going to go, but Jane could also render herself invisible and block out Alice completely- not only from physical sight, but (like with Edward) could prevent the other girl from seeing her future. It annoyed Alice to no end, but each time the girl scowled, Jane just laughed harder.  
Edward spent an inordinate amount of time watching Jane laugh. He had to wonder, though- how was it that no one else could see how _interesting_ it was just to see it? Her nose scrunched slightly, and her cheeks almost looked like they should become flushed. The sound was like bells, ringing out to the trees, the mountains, the sky. Everything seemed to brighten when she laughed. Did no one else honestly see this?  
He could not help but watch Jane. She had always been fascinating to him, but now- once again- something was definitely different. He could not quite put his finger on it, but it seemed now that every time he even saw her, something that had settled in the pit of his stomach burst into a million tiny, lovely fireworks. And he may not know what it was, but that feeling was anything but bad.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

After so many years, Jane was sure that she would be uncomfortable staying with so many people. She was convinced that it would be horrible, and she that would feel anxious and stifled about the fact that she would have to be around so many others at once, not planning out every day on her own like she was so used to doing. But as the summer went on, she found that it was the exact opposite of what she had thought. She loved living with the Cullens.  
It was not, as she'd first suspected, the end of her freedom. Instead, it was more like the beginning of having a family- one that she was eager to join once more, if they would accept her.  
Carlisle and Esme were too good to her; they welcomed her back with open arms, treating her just as they had so many years ago, and just as they now did with their other children.  
Jane was also surprised to find that they had added three others in the time she'd been gone. But it was certainly a welcome surprise, because from the very beginning she loved Edward's other siblings. And as the summer passed, they turned from acquaintances into very good friends.  
Jasper, quiet as he was, was always very interesting to talk to. He had so many things to say, and was a fascinating individual. Plus, he- like Edward, Alice, and herself- had an extra sense. He could manipulate the emotions of those around him, and often made Jane feel happy when she was upset, or calmed her down if she was nervous. His subtle gift came in quite handy with the family.  
Emmett was quite different from his blonde brother. At first, Jane had been very intimidated by him. He was huge in size, and looked as though he could easily rip someone in two (which, as she knew, he could). But as she got to know him, she realized that he was more of the 'gentle giant' type. Except for when he was hunting, Emmett was more like a teddy bear than a grizzly. And he always made everybody laugh, whether with his jokes, antics, or just the sound of his own loud laughter.  
And then there was Alice. The very first thing she'd done, when meeting Jane, was pull her into a hug. At first, Jane had been completely startled. After all, they didn't even know each other! But then Edward explained that Alice could see the future, and had seen Jane coming. Since the first day, Jane had hardly spent a moment apart from the black-haired girl. She was so much fun to be with, and was constantly filled with boundless enthusiasm. In the past couple of months, she had become Jane's best friend.  
There was, of course, still Edward. But he was a different sort of best friend nowadays. Back in the 20s and 30s, he had seemed like a big brother to her- like a replacement of sorts for the one she'd lost. But by this point, she could barely even remember her human brother. And she had lived so long on her own, she did not need the protection and guidance that she had at the beginning. So now she and Edward, while still being best friends, had a current between them that certainly did _not_ feel much like friendship. But she couldn't be completely sure…

Eventually, the summer had to end. September arrived, and with it came the beginning of the school year. And in a town as small as Forks, news of a family of newcomers like the Cullens was the hottest topic of the year.  
They'd registered under three different last names, to go along with their stories: Rosalie and Jasper Hale (twins, Esme's niece and nephew who were orphaned at age eight and lived with them ever since), Edward Cullen (an adopted, unrelated son), Emmett Cullen (another adopted, unrelated son), and Jane and Alice Blackwell (sisters, fostered by the Cullens since they were five and six, respectively). Now, they just had to hope that the humans would accept the story.  
The first day of school, everyone was talking about them- and trying unsuccessfully not to stare. And even when they weren't talking about them out loud, the strange new family was on everybody's mind.  
"That girl is wondering where on Earth we come from," Edward whispered to Jane as they walked to class. "And that boy wants to know why there are so many of us in one family. Most others are thinking of our looks, as well."  
_Of course_, Jane thought. That much at least was obvious- one didn't have to be able to read minds to see that, from their stares, everyone was thinking about the strange, unnatural beauty that they all possessed. Each one of them ignored it, though. They were used to people staring at them.  
"Well, I suppose I'll see you in Spanish," Edward said as they reached the building that housed Jane's class.  
She nodded, and they said goodbye. Though Edward was a junior, and Jane a sophomore, she had taken a few placement tests for the school (and passed with flying colors) so that they would let her be in third-year Spanish, and English as well (which she had now). Not wanting to seem 'too good', however (just like the rest of the Cullens did), she had gotten herself put into sophomore Algebra, European History, and Chemistry. Now she just had to get through classes.  
English went fine, she supposed. People had, of course, unabashedly looked at her during the entire time before her teacher called attendance.  
"Jane Blackwell?" he asked, his eyes immediately finding her- after all, he'd probably known all of the other kids already.  
She raised her hand, feeling the stares of each student as they tried to hide the looks. She grimaced inwardly. It was going to be a _long_ day.  
History, her second class, was not much different. But thankfully Spanish was third, and she could at least see Edward again. He met her outside the room, and they sat together at the back, only looking up when their teacher called attendance. For the most part, they just tried to ignore everybody else.  
Lunch came after Spanish, and Jane and Edward walked to the cafeteria together and looked for their siblings.  
"Hi, Edward," called a female voice from off to the side. Jane looked over and shot up an eyebrow when she saw a short, curly-haired brunette practically bouncing up and down at the sight of Edward.  
"Hello, Jessica," he replied, stiff but polite. He said nothing more, but shook his head the slightest bit as they continued to walk.  
"That's Jessica Stanley," he whispered to Jane. "She is in my first period American History class. "She already has plans to get me to ask her out…" he sighed.  
"Oh, isn't your life tough," Jane replied sarcastically. They reached an empty table in the lunchroom and sat down next to one another.  
Edward laughed. "Speak for yourself! I've been listening to what most of these boys have been thinking about you, and believe me- it isn't all that innocent." His tone was light, but his eyes held a hint of hardness. Jane wanted to ask him about that, but the rest of their siblings showed up at the table just then.  
"So?" Alice chirped in greeting. "How was everybody's morning?"  
They all shot her a dirty look.  
"It is no different here than anywhere else," Edward said. "Listening to their thoughts…it's all the same. They are all superficially fascinated. I just hope it will die down soon."  
"It will," Alice replied confidently. Jane was happy to hear that- she knew as well as the rest of them that they could always trust Alice's word.

The rest of the day- no- the rest of the _week_ went by painfully slowly. Thankfully Alice was right, though, and the fascination with the Cullens died down at the end of the first month. Once people began to see that they distanced themselves from the rest of the school, and that they wouldn't actually be getting involved with anyone else, the fascination pretty much ended. They just became 'that weird, loner family.' That was an easy enough role to play.  
Everything became a blur of school, hunting, staying hidden on those rare sunny days…and then doing it all over again. Half the time, their only variation came from who went hunting with whom.  
Alice often liked to claim Jane for herself, insisting that they need some 'bonding time' (whatever that meant). But every time they would run off, Alice would grin and adopt a creepy glimmer in her eye that simultaneously terrified Jane and annoyed her to no end.  
"Oh, for goodness sakes- what _is_ it, Alice?" she asked, catching the other girl staring at her for the hundredth time. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"  
"It's nothing," Alice replied immediately. "Just…glad to be spending time with my new sister, that's all."  
It was at times like that when Jane really wished she had Edward's ability to read minds. Alice had been doing these sorts of things for weeks now, and it was absolutely driving Jane up a wall. She seemed to constantly be smiling to herself, looking like she knew some secret that Jane did not. It was infuriating.  
So it was basically for that reason alone that Jane much preferred hunting with Edward than Alice. He was much easier to talk with, didn't keep secrets from her, and left her alone if and when she needed it. Plus (and she could not quite tell if this was a good or bad thing), she felt this strange little rush every time he was near her. It was a mix of a fluttering stomach, tingling skin, and the sensation that if her heart could beat, it would be racing.  
She fervently hoped that he could not hear her thoughts, whenever they turned to those strange feelings. In fact, she tried as best as she could to block him out, usually by mentally reciting something dull like the capital cities of all the European countries, or counting to a thousand in Chinese- a nifty trick she had learned from Alice. And of course, if that failed, there was always invisibility.  
But even spending so much time trying to block Edward from her mind did not keep Jane from being as observant as she'd always been.  
As the weeks passed, turning into months, Jane began to notice a few strange things about Edward. He seemed, for one, to always give her a strange look- like he wanted to say something to her, but didn't quite know how to phrase it. So instead, he would usually mumble something about a question from their latest Spanish assignment and then look away.  
And whenever they did anything together, he seemed very…_protective_…of Jane. But it was a different sort of protectiveness than from when she had been a newborn. Back then, it was like an older brother, watching to make sure his younger sister was never hurt (even though that was, of course, impossible). He had guided her- brought her into the world of the vampires, taught her how to hunt and how to blend in with the humans when necessary. Back in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, he'd been a teacher, a brother, and a best friend all at once.  
But now, his protectiveness had taken a different turn. It had an almost possessive edge to it that was rather unlike that of an older brother. He was still keeping her from harm, but not acting as a teacher anymore. Instead, it was more that he kept everything away from her that he thought might have the potential to cause her harm. Even more than that, he grew more annoyed by the day with things that should not have angered him- like the thoughts of the high school students around them. He often shared whatever he heard with Jane, and his level of agitation with them always surprised her.

"I don't like that Mike Newton," Edward grumbled softly one November day at lunch. They sat together alone at their usual table, their other 'siblings' off in other parts of the school.  
Jane looked up from the pizza crust she'd been slowly picking apart, pretending to eat. "Hmm?"  
"That kid, Mike Newton. I don't like him."  
Jane furrowed her brows and scanned the cafeteria. "Um…which one is he?"  
Edward gestured slightly off to the right. Jane followed his gaze, her eyes landing on a blonde boy on the other side of the cafeteria that she vaguely remembered was in her English class. She frowned, not seeing what was so different about him compared to the rest of the humans (besides the fact that he seemed to be glancing up at their table every few minutes). He was fine- handsome enough, she supposed, with a boyish face and blue eyes to compliment his blonde hair. She heard Edward growl softly beside her.  
"So he's handsome, is he?"  
"Stop reading my thoughts!" Jane hissed, then turned to him and shrugged. "I don't know…for a human, yes, I suppose he is. But he's no different than any of the other ones. Why do you hate him so much?"  
Edward refused to meet her gaze. "I just…don't like his thoughts," he replied. "And he keeps staring at you."  
Something finally clicked into place. "Why, Edward Cullen…are you _jealous_?"  
Edward gave Jane that sheepish half-smile that he only ever seemed to use around her. "Perhaps a bit," he admitted.  
Jane sat stunned for a moment. She tried to think of something to say, and had just opened her mouth to speak when another voice interrupted.  
"Hi, kids!" Alice chirped pleasantly, sitting down across from them. "Wonderful weather we're having, isn't it?"  
Edward shot her a glare, and Jane just looked down at her uneaten food, not in the mood for Alice's enthusiasm at that moment. Instead, she spent the rest of the lunch period trying to keep her thoughts away from what Edward had said before Alice showed up- about the fact that he was jealous of someone liking her- despite how little it obviously meant.  
That was why she was thankful, that afternoon, when Alice foresaw that the weather tomorrow would be sunny- a lucky break on Jane's part. They would skip school and go hunting, meaning Jane could go off on her own and retreat into her invisibility. She was unbelievably thankful for that, because she needed to _think_.  
And so think she did. The next morning, when Carlisle called all six of them out of school for a "family hiking trip to take advantage of this rare bit of nice weather," Jane simply told them that she needed to be alone that day. Carlisle and Esme readily accepted that, of course, and Alice had probably already seen it coming. Edward looked a bit upset when she said it, but otherwise said nothing. And the others, of course, did not care one way or another. Jane was free for the day to be on her own.  
The minute Jane was in the woods, she enacted her skill. She felt the familiar shudder of her visible body disappearing, being replaced by the weightlessness and sheer freedom she felt when she knew that no one could see her- or hear her, in the case of Edward.  
_Edward_.  
That was exactly the subject she needed to think about. He had admitted, however grudgingly, to being jealous- and of a human no less! The thought of it seemed ridiculous, and she had to wonder: _why_ was he jealous of someone like Mike Newton? Was it…could he possibly have feelings for her?  
The idea seemed strange, and impossible. In Jane's mind, she was still that little human girl from 1926- shy, awkward, and rather unremarkable. Sure, becoming a vampire had certainly changed her, and the past seventy years or so of living alone had matured her. But she was still just…her.  
This was exactly what she was thinking as she ran, after having fed, through the forest. Admittedly, she was not paying the strictest attention to her surroundings, enjoying the feeling of running too much. So it caught her by surprise when she collided head on with a solid figure.  
"Oof," said a familiar voice, steadying himself after having been knocked off balance. He squinted in front of him. "Jane?"  
Jane shuddered again, and returned to visibility. "Sorry, Edward," she replied. "I wasn't watching where I was going. What are you doing here?" She immediately regretted the question. What _else_ would he be doing here?  
He shrugged. "There are more bobcats in this part of the wildlife reservation. And I know you like them…I suppose I was just hoping to run into you. Though I did not mean quite so literally…" he cracked a grin.  
Jane managed to smile, biting at her lower lip. "And why were you hoping to run into me?" she asked.  
Edward sat down on one of the boulders off to the side, patting the space next to him for her to sit down. "I wanted to talk to you. About yesterday- what we were talking about before Alice interrupted us."  
She nodded and sat down next to him. With expectant gold eyes, she silently willed him to begin the conversation. After all, it had been his idea.  
"You really don't know what everyone thinks of you, do you Jane?" he began, shaking his head. "It's not only Mike Newton- though he is certainly one of the worst of them. I only got angry at him yesterday, because his thoughts were the most prominent. He- along with just about every other boy, just about had a heart attack once they heard that you weren't taken. All of them immediately began having fantasies about you, and started dreaming up ways to ask you out. The only reason none of them have done it yet is because they are terrified. Mike Newton wants to ask you to the winter formal, though."  
Jane wrinkled her nose. "We have a winter formal?"  
Edward tipped his head back and let out a loud laugh. "I tell you all that I just did, and yet all you can manage in response is _that_? Sometimes I wonder if your head needs to be checked."  
"Well, no one would be better at it than you," she scowled in response. "But seriously, Edward. Are you honestly jealous of guys like _Mike Newton_? That's just…silly. I could care less about Mike, or any of the rest of them. Just ignore their thoughts- they'll go away soon enough."  
Edward smiled softly. "I wish it were that easy," he replied. "I try to ignore their thoughts, and mostly I can, but it is rather difficult when they are thinking such things about you in particular."  
Jane put her hand over his- a comforting gesture she'd done many times before- but this time there was a definite edge to it, like an electrical charge. It was like everything she'd been feeling around him for the past few months, just concentrated into that one bit of physical contact. It felt nice- warm, almost. Edward held her hand in return, and Jane found that she did not particularly want to let go.  
But there was a rustle in the trees a few seconds later, and it was then that Carlisle and Esme showed up in front of them. Jane and Edward ripped their hands apart as if they'd been burned.  
"Ah, there you are," Esme said. "We've been wondering where you were. Everyone was thinking of heading north for the weekend- there is some bigger game up there. Do you two want to join?"  
They both nodded, and the four ran off to join the rest of the family.

Monday came, and the six younger Cullens went back to school in remarkably good moods after their hunting trip that weekend. The morning passed quickly, and at lunchtime they all sat and chatted rather animatedly with one another. That is, until Alice stopped dead in the middle of a sentence and stared blankly at the wall.  
_Uh-oh_. Everyone in the family knew what that meant.  
"Alice?" Jasper asked, putting his hands on her shoulders to bring her back to reality. "What is it? What do you see?"  
"I…don't know," she replied, shaking her head. "Just a change of some sort. Things are going to be different for us in a little while- probably after winter break. I see a lot of activity…people are talking…and there's a girl. No one I've ever seen before, I don't know who it is…"  
"Maybe it's that girl everyone's been talking about," Emmett piped in. "There's supposed to be some girl moving here to live with her dad- you know, the police chief? We met him a couple of months ago. Anyway, someone was talking about it in my math class."  
Alice nodded. "I think you may be right, Emmett," she replied. "But whoever it is…she is definitely going to change some things around here."


	8. Chapter 8

** Chapter 8**

Edward sighed to himself. He was sitting in the living room with the rest of his family, as he'd done just about every other day of winter break. He sat on one of the large, white leather couches, hyperaware of the fact that Jane was sitting at his side. Ever since they had talked, that weekend in November, he'd been constantly even more aware of the girl's presence than he had been before.  
But at the present moment, he forced himself to focus on everything else. It was far too easy to get distracted by his own thoughts, especially when they involved Jane.  
Alice was speaking, at the moment. She was answering one of Carlisle's questions- asking her if she had seen anything else since that initial vision she'd had a month before.  
"Nothing new, Carlisle," she replied. "It's the same as it's been since last month- just that something around here is going to change with that girl Isabella Swan's arrival."  
Carlisle nodded, and told Alice to keep a lookout for anything else.  
Edward wondered what on Earth could possibly change because of some girl- Isabella Swan, as they'd discovered her name was- coming to live in Forks. After all, she was just another human. How could she possibly change anything?  
But he supposed they would find out soon enough. After all, she was scheduled to arrive at the end of the break, and start school with them at the beginning of the new term. She was a junior, just as he and Alice were supposed to be, so Edward expected he would have at least one class with her (after all, Forks High School was rather small), but other than that he could not see how she would impact him any more than that. But again, they'd find out soon enough…

It was Alice who was the most anxious to get to school, the first Monday after the break ended. She did not stop talking for the entire drive there, seemingly intent on filling every bit of silence with her chatter.  
Every human's head was filled with the same thoughts, that day, and all revolved around the new student, Isabella Swan. Edward learned her schedule through the minds of others, and discovered that she had first period English with Jane, and then would have Biology with him that afternoon. He mentally reminded himself to ask Jane about her during their Spanish class, to see what she thought of this apparently fascinating human girl. He personally failed to see what was so interesting about her, but was curious solely based on Alice's vision of her changing things for them.  
_What on Earth could she possibly change_? Edward asked himself for possibly the thousandth time since Alice's initial vision. He had wondered that all through winter break, trying to figure out how this girl's presence could possibly affect the family. But each time, he came up blank.  
His American History class finally ended, though not without a significant amount of torture. Those fifty minutes were barely passable on normal days- how was he supposed to even think about concentrating on a day like this? Of course, he knew American history backwards and forwards- having lived through half of what was being taught- so he hardly needed to pay any real attention. But nonetheless, it annoyed him endlessly to have to try and exhibit patience.  
When the bell finally did ring, Edward was out of his seat before anyone else had even gathered their things. He hardly noticed the few looks he got for his too-quick movements; he was already out the door.  
When he got to Spanish class, Jane was already in her usual seat at the back of the room. He slipped into the desk beside her and looked expectantly into her flat black eyes (mentally cursing himself for not having hunted that past weekend- it was becoming obvious, through seeing Jane, that they really needed to feed).  
"I sat next to her in English," Jane whispered. She already knew what he was thinking without him even having to ask. "She's nice, Edward. And intelligent for a human, as far as I can tell. You should talk to her. Anyway, I don't see any problems with her…maybe Alice's vision was wrong."  
Edward shook his head. "Alice's visions are never wrong. But maybe it won't be something bad- after all, she only said this Isabella would change something, not present a problem."  
"Bella," Jane replied.  
Edward looked at her confusedly.  
"She prefers to go by Bella- she corrected everyone in English class."  
"Okay, Bella then," Edward said- though he did not really see the point. After all, what did it honestly matter what the girl's name was? He was about to speak again, but was interrupted.  
"Mister Cullen, Miss Blackwell, is there a problem back there?"  
"No, Senora Lopez- no problem at all," Edward replied to the teacher.  
"Good, then I suppose one of you could tell us the answer to number four from last night's homework?"  
"Carlos conoce a Luisa," Jane answered with a perfected accent that Edward knew came from living in both Spain and Mexico for a time.  
"Correct," Senora Lopez said with a tight smile. She wasn't particularly fond of Jane, for some reason- jealousy, Edward supposed, from the tone of the woman's thoughts that he often caught. After all, not only was Jane a straight-A student as a supposed sophomore in her class, but also a model student for good behavior…not to mention uncommonly beautiful, and at only sixteen (as far as the teacher knew). It was easy for people to be jealous.  
But for all of those qualities she possessed, Jane was never boastful about any of them (perhaps another reason Senora Lopez did not like her- for having everything to brag about, Jane was still so quiet about it). It was yet another reason that Edward liked her so much. Unlike Rosalie, Jane was one of the shyest and most unobtrusive people he had ever met. She did not see herself very clearly, though. She was nowhere _near_ as average as she was convinced that she was.  
Edward forced himself back to the present. His mind had drifted off again, and he wanted to concentrate on getting through the rest of the day to try and pick up any more information he could about this Isabella- no, _Bella_- Swan.  
At lunch that afternoon, Edward listened in on the thoughts around him. Predictably, they all centered around Bella. When he walked into the cafeteria with his family, though, he caught his own name in a conversation.  
"That's Edward Cullen," Jessica Stanley was whispering to Bella, who sat next to her at their lunch table. "He's totally gorgeous, obviously- but don't even waste your time. Clearly no one here is good enough for him." Her voice- and her mind- carried a tone of bitterness.  
Edward had to force back a smile. Jessica had tried to pursue him since the first day of school- unsuccessfully, of course. He laughed internally at the idea of what she would think if he explained to her just _why_ he could never be interested in her…not that she was his type in the least bit, anyway. Her personality was far too whiny, and focused on her social life. Definitely not his type.  
Edward listened in, wondering how Bella would respond to Jessica.  
"Oh, I wasn't going to," she replied.  
He listened harder, learning the tone of her voice so that he could hear it in her thoughts. He wanted to know what this new girl thought of the strange, pale family that had also just recently come to their school. He let everyone else's 'voice' drift to a background noise, so that he could concentrate on this girl's thoughts. Listening intently, he waited for what he was sure to come.  
…nothing.  
It was like she had no thoughts whatsoever, which was Edward's original thought for all of a half-second. But then she spoke aloud again, and he realized that she _had_ to be thinking. Only…he couldn't hear it. It was like her mind was turned off.  
"Edward?" Jane asked, putting a hand on his arm as she noticed his obviously frustrated expression. "What is it?"  
"I can't hear her thoughts," he replied. "They're completely shut off from me, and I don't know why. This has never happened before."  
The rest of the family frowned. They all surreptitiously glanced over at the girl as well, as if trying to see what it was that was keeping her thoughts from Edward. Each glanced away quickly though, not wanting her to look over at their table and see them all staring at her.  
He spent the rest of the lunch period- and the two classes after it- in sheer frustration, wondering _why_ he could not hear this girl's voice. That certainly complicated things a bit. Now he was even more anxious to get to Biology class, in order to meet this strange individual.  
As usual, he got to Biology early and took his seat at his table near the back. It was the only lab table without a second occupant- which made him realize that he would now inevitably have to share with Bella. This intrigued Edward more than annoying him, however; maybe he could get to know this girl, get some insight into why he couldn't read her thoughts. This was what was on his mind as the rest of the students filed in and took their seats.  
She came in a couple of minutes after the bell rang, after everybody else was already in their seats. She clutched at the straps of her black backpack, obviously anxious about being in a building full of strangers. It reminded Edward a bit of Jane, the shyness. For a fraction of a second, it made him smile a tiny bit. And then she stepped closer.  
Her scent drifted through the air on the breeze from the rotating fan at the front of the room. It hit him like a knife, slicing through the careful human façade he'd so effectively put up for so long and reaching right to the very basest instincts of his nature that had been tucked away for eighty years. It was suddenly as if he'd never even given up hunting humans. Or rather, like it didn't matter that he _had_, because her scent was so entirely mouthwatering that nothing else on Earth mattered besides that _smell_. And he wanted it- her.  
_No!_ The slim (but still present) rational part of his brain told him. _Do not do this, Edward! Think of your family, how disappointed they would be if you messed this up and had to leave again._  
But the monster inside him screamed in protest. It did not want to be ignored. It was out for blood- literally. It wanted him to jump up and kill, reminding how easily he could slay each person in the room in his quest for this one girl.  
She sat next to him, of course- much to his horror. All through class, he sat as far away as the table would allow, ignoring her completely in favor of arguing internally with his inner demon. He used every rational reason he could think of to try and quell the monster: _think about the girl- her father would be crushed… think about all the other students in this class, so many innocent lives that do not need to end…think of the consequences for you- your brothers and sisters would be upset, you'd have to leave, and Jane might pick up and run off again…_  
That last argument did it for him. He managed to calm himself just enough to know that he would not cause the girl any harm- at least, not at that moment. He would be able to withstand it, if only barely.  
The entire fifty minutes, however, was pure torture. He sat rigidly in his seat, refusing to breathe- though that helped matters only marginally. Every time Bella Swan so much as fidgeted, the air would stir once again and send a burn through his throat that made him feel as though he'd swallowed a bowl of razor blades for breakfast. But he concentrated on making it through the class period, counting the seconds until the end.  
Finally, his reprieve came with the sound of the bell. Edward ran out of the room so fast he almost forgot to act like a human- that hardly mattered, though, at that point. All that mattered was getting out. That made him earlier than usual to his last class of the day, where he sat in stony silence and tried to forget about the horror he had almost just caused.  
At the end of the day, he ran to the front office to try and talk to Mrs. Cope, the woman at the front desk who handled school schedules. He tried everything he could to get out of Biology, but even with his most winning smile it was to no avail. There was nothing that could be done. He cursed internally, and mentally resigned himself to a semester in the mouth of hell.

"Carlisle, this is like nothing I have ever experienced before," Edward said to his father on the phone that afternoon- Carlisle still being at the hospital, of course. "Usually I don't mind the smell of humans, but this one…it was horrible. She was different. It was like when we were living in Virginia, and Emmett came across that woman in the country…" he shook his head. That particular day hadn't ended well. "I think I should leave," he continued. "Just for a little while, to clear my head and sort through all of this."  
"I understand, son," Carlisle replied. "Come to the hospital and take my car- it has a full tank of gas and you won't have to stop. Take as much time as you need."  
Edward thanked him, and snapped his cell phone shut. When he turned around, he was surprised to find himself face-to-face with a small, dark-haired girl he hadn't heard approaching.  
"Jane!" he exclaimed. "I didn't hear you come in. What are you doing in here?"  
"I overheard your conversation," she replied. "You can't go to…wherever you're planning on going…by yourself. I'm coming with you."  
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded once. They walked out of the house without a word to the rest of the family, Edward needed to get out as soon as possible. Within minutes, they had gone to the hospital, exchanged keys with Carlisle, and were on the road headed north.

"Finally, I can _breathe_," Edward sighed a few hours later. He'd gotten out of the car, and now stood in the clean Alaskan air, hundreds of miles away from Forks, and Bella Swan, and every problem that had just sprung up because of her. Relaxing for the first time, he fell backwards into a fresh snowdrift and inhaled heavily, breathing in slick ice and dead trees and roaming dear. Purity.  
"So tell me exactly what happened," Jane said as she fell beside him in the snow. "Maybe I can help you sort out your thoughts."  
He nodded. It was always easier to think things through with someone to help- and Jane had always been best at that. She understood him more than anyone. He proceeded to spend the next hour or so telling her exactly how Biology class had gone, with this Bella Swan's scent affecting him as it did.  
"I think…there are people in this world whose blood affects us more than others'," he said. "There was this time when we were living in Virginia…Emmett was out in the middle of the country, and he came across this woman living in a small house pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, he says that the smell of her was different than any other human he'd come across before. It was like it drove him completely crazy- he couldn't even think clearly anymore, he just acted. He attacked without a second thought- he just couldn't handle it; it was overwhelming. It's happened to him one other time, with similar results." He turned to Jane, who looked thoughtful. "Has anything like this ever happened to you?"  
To her surprise, she nodded. "Once," she replied. "What happened with Emmett sounds very much like something that happened with me when I was in Phoenix, about fifty years ago. I'd already gone back to vegetarianism, though at that point it was difficult- which is probably why I have always written the incident off. I suppose I just always thought it was because I was still trying to relearn the lifestyle, to stop hunting the way I did…" she sighed, a quick flash of pain passing through her gold eyes that left almost as quickly as it had appeared.  
"Anyway," she continued, "I was only going out at night, of course, and one night I came across this man who'd just come out of the nightclub across the alley. He was stumbling, clearly drunk, and I wanted to avoid him…but the breeze blew, and then his scent hit me, and the _smell_…I can't even describe it. Suddenly, the fact that I was a supposed 'vegetarian' didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered, except getting to him. So I approached him." Jane's face darkened.  
"He looked up, noticing me for the first time. He smiled, but his eyes were glazed over. He reeked of alcohol- not that the smell even bothered me. Plus, I could barely concentrate on that when his own scent was so intense. Anyway, he grinned at me and said, "Well hey there, pretty thing. What's a girl like you doing out so late at night? You could get hurt if you're not careful."  
"He was dead before he could say another word. Moments later, of course, I realized that I could've used my invisibility to sneak up on him- and I probably should have- but I just wasn't thinking." She sighed.  
"A couple of days later, the papers announced that the police had identified him by dental records- the only thing left behind, after the rest of his body had been burned away. Jim Harris, age twenty-six. He worked for the bank down the street, and had gone out with a couple of guys from work that night to celebrate his friend's engagement. He was going to be the best man."  
"Jane, it's okay," Edward said softly. "There was nothing you could have done- just like what happened with Emmett." He frowned, looking at her crumpled face. He was positive that if they had the ability to cry, she would be doing so right now. The sight of it made his chest ache. He reached out and took her hand, marveling internally at the impossible warmth of it. She squeezed his in return, and the two looked out at the landscape in comfortable silence.  
For the moment, Edward forgot his worries about Bella Swan, and instead focused on his increasingly confusing feelings for Jane. As of late, he'd begun to realize that they were significantly less brotherly than they had been eighty years ago, and therefore far more difficult to figure out.  
He cared for Jane very deeply- that fact was undeniable. He had always cared for her, even during those long years they'd spent apart. Now that she was with the family once more, Edward never wanted to see her leave again- and it was this thought that seemed to scare him the most. What did his feelings for her _mean_, exactly? She was supposedly his best friend. They had always considered one another to be as such. He did not want to ruin their easy companionship, especially when he could not even define his strange new feelings. He didn't even know exactly what they were!  
With a sigh, Edward decided that he needed to put these thoughts aside. After all, it would do no good to be thinking about all of this at the moment, in his fragile and difficult state. What he needed to do was worry about Bella Swan, and how he was going to fix his problems regarding her.

A week later, Edward finally felt strong enough to return back to Forks. He'd talked over his issues with Jane until he was sure she might kill him out of boredom, and was sure that he could face this problem head-on. So, with newfound conviction, he and Jane got in the car and drove back home.  
The rest of the family was glad to see them.  
"You're back!" Esme exclaimed, running out to the car just as they both got out of it. She pulled them each into a tight hug. "I've missed having you both away for so long- the house got too quiet with only four kids in it."  
Edward and Jane both laughed. "I'm sure Emmett more than made for our absence," Edward replied.  
"Hey!" Emmett protested, but he was grinning as usual. He, along with the rest of the family, had joined Esme in coming outside to greet them.  
"How was Alaska?" Carlisle asked, one hand each on both Edward's and Jane's shoulders. They had, of course, called him as soon as they stopped the car, and updated him on how they were doing throughout the week.  
"Snowy," Jane replied. _And not very exciting, landscape-wise_, she added mentally. "But the hunting was good, and I think Edward is doing better." She turned to face him, the end of her statement a question.  
Edward nodded. "I am," he replied. "But I am sorry for running off like that, and taking Jane with me. I think, however, that now that I've cleared my head, this situation with Bella Swan will be less of a problem than it originally seemed."  
"I wouldn't say that just yet," Alice put in, speaking for the first time. She appeared from behind Jasper to stand in front of Edward and Jane.  
"What is it, Alice?" Jane asked. She frowned, her mind flashing with worried thoughts about her friend.  
Alice shook her head. "I keep seeing a lot of Bella Swan," she replied. "More than I should. She's very curious about us; about you especially, Edward. I see her coming close to us- closer than any human has gotten before. She's curious, and she's very stubborn. She's not going to give up until she figures _something_ out about us, at least. I suppose we'll have to come with a story there, to pacify her. But she's different than the others. I can see that already. I don't see you killing her…but she is still going to change things."  
They all exchanged looks ranging from confused to annoyed (though that was mostly Rosalie).  
"Seriously?" the blonde girl whined. "We already have to deal with the fact that Edward might kill her, and then we're all screwed. But now we have to worry about her actually wanting to _talk_ to us? This is ridiculous!" She whirled around and walked off in a huff, Emmett shrugging and following behind her.  
"How bad is it, Alice?" Edward asked, turning back to her after Rosalie and Emmett went back inside.  
"I honestly can't say," she replied. "Things haven't gotten that clear yet. I suppose we'll just have to see."

The following Monday, Edward went to school resolved to be completely polite to Bella Swan. After all, he did not need to frighten her any more than he probably already had. Plus, if Alice's visions were correct…  
He shook his head. Alice's visions were subjective- there was always a chance that things could change.  
At lunch, he talked only to Jane. She was the one with the most knowledge of the human girl, considering their shared English class. Plus, she had been the one to go with him when he'd run off, and help him with his problems. They talked about how he would handle Biology class- Edward wondering the entire time, of course, if he would even be able to get through it.  
"You will," Jane said to him. "I have faith in you."  
"I know you will," Alice added confidently from Jane's other side. "I can already see it- you won't hurt her."  
"Thanks, Alice," Edward replied. "And thank you, Jane. I think…maybe I can do this. It can't be that hard, right?" He attempted to smile.  
"Piece of cake," Jane replied, smiling herself. "Seriously. It's only one girl, right? So, you want to drink her blood. No big deal at all. Actually, you should probably just tell Bella the situation. I'm sure she'd completely understand…"  
"Shut up," he chuckled, rolling his eyes. From the corner of his eye, he saw Alice look down at the apple she'd been tossing from hand to hand, a mysterious grin present in her pixie-like features. But she was going through the national anthem to every country in her head, effectively blocking him out. _Damn_. Just once, he would love to catch her in her thoughts.  
When it came time for Biology, he walked in the room and sat down at his table, reminding himself both to act polite (and human), and to not breathe, even if it would only marginally help. Within a few minutes everyone else had entered the room, including an increasingly nervous-looking Bella Swan, who sat down warily beside him. He couldn't blame her, really, for being nervous. After all, the last time she'd seen Edward, he had been…well, terrifying.  
"Hello," he greeted her pleasantly, holding his breath as he managed a smooth, placid smile. She looked up at him with wide eyes, obviously startled by his sudden friendliness. "My name is Edward Cullen," he continued. "I didn't get a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan."  
She continued to stare at him, but finally stuttered a response.  
"How do you know my name?"  
He frowned, confused by her question. Had he gotten her name wrong? Jane had expressly told him that it was Bella Swan- perhaps she actually did prefer Isabella? He asked her as such.  
"No," she replied. "It's Bella, I just…I think my dad must call me Isabella behind my back, because that's what everyone called me when I got here."  
_Oh_. He mentally chastised himself for forgetting something so simple. He shouldn't have known her name- and he wouldn't have, if he couldn't see inside everyone else's mind. It was only this ridiculous inability to read her thoughts that had him confused and off guard. He had to be more careful.  
Muttering some excuse, Edward instead decided to steer the conversation towards her. That seemed to distract her sufficiently enough. Plus, provided she did not move around too much, and stir the air in the room with a flick of her hand or a flip of her hair, she actually proved to be enjoyable company. She was pleasant to talk to, and Edward found himself enjoying his conversation with her much more than he had believed that he would. For a human, Bella Swan was fairly interesting. He found himself glad that he had listened to Jane.


	9. Chapter 9

** Chapter 9**

Jane was happy with the fact that Edward seemed to be taking to heart her idea of talking to Bella. After all, though he did not much need to be told it (unlike Jasper), it always helped to remember that humans were _people_- not just something to be hunted. It would help him especially in Bella's case, considering how he wanted her blood more than anyone else's.  
After the horrible first week of her arrival, Edward seemed to calm down significantly. Jane was grateful for that, because she really liked Bella. Something about the human girl seemed to speak to her. Jane thought about it, and figured that it was probably because she reminded her a lot of herself from when she'd been human. And Jane hadn't thought about that in a very long time.  
She ended up sitting next to her in English class. Bella told Jane about her family, her life in Phoenix, and how she felt coming to a new school in the middle of her junior year. Jane could sympathize- more than Bella even knew- and talked with her about how it felt to be the new kid as well.  
"You're lucky," Bella sighed one day as they talked before class started.  
Jane cocked her head in confusion. "How so?"  
Bella looked at her as if it should be obvious. "You have a big family with you- so you're never really alone, even if you're new. I mean, you've got a sister- and you and Edward seem very close."  
Jane knew she couldn't mean that at anything other than a surface level, but still her stomach flipped at the other girl's words. Bella Swan seemed to be more like Jane than she'd originally figured. She was quiet like her, for one, and for another, she seemed to be very perceptive. Hopefully not _too_ perceptive.

Things seemed to calm down within the next week. Jane and Bella seemed to be forging a friendship, and Edward seemed to be struggling a bit less with the human girl. Maybe things would end up alright after all.  
One particular day, the Cullen family stepped out of the house to find the ground covered with a fine layer of ice, left over from the snowfall that had occurred a day earlier.  
"Great," Rosalie said sarcastically as they walked out the door. "These shoes are horrible in this weather. They are going to get completely ruined."  
"Yeah, because _that's_ what's important," Jane muttered back, too low for anyone to hear. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw Edward stifle a laugh, and tried to hide her own grin as well. They all got into his Volvo (able to fit four in the back seat only because Alice and Jane were so small) and drove off, listening to Rosalie grumble a string of complaints the entire time.  
When they got to school, they all headed off in their separate directions towards their different classes. Jane spotted Bella across the parking lot, having an obviously difficult time trying to stay upright as she walked to first period. She made her way over to the human girl, easily avoiding the icier patches as she walked.  
"Hey, Bella," Jane greeted. "Having some trouble?"  
Bella sighed. "I'm not so good with keeping my balance on the ice," she replied. "Heck, I'm not so good with keeping my balance on a _normal_ day, let alone the day Hell decides to freeze over."  
Jane snorted. "Oh, come on," she replied with a laugh. "Forks isn't Hell."  
Bella gave her a raised-eyebrow glance as if to say, 'oh, really?', then looked back down at her feet in obvious concentration on walking.  
"Well, I'll tell you what," Jane added. "If you fall, I _promise_ to catch you before you hit the ground. It'll be like one of those lame trust-circle games they make you play for 'community building.'" She wrinkled her nose, remembering the time they had to do that at her old high school in Wisconsin, the year she lived there.  
Bella rolled her eyes, but she laughed. "Alright, fine," she replied. "If only because I'd like to see you try…you're, what, two inches shorter than I am?"  
Jane scowled, and stuck out her tongue- a gesture she'd most definitely learned from Alice. It was easier to act like her sister than Jane had originally thought. "Maybe, but don't let that fool you. I'm strong for my size." She made a show of flexing her bicep, making the other girl laugh.  
"Okay, okay, I believe you," Bella chuckled. "Now, can we get to English class before I actually _do_ fall?"  
They reached the building without any disasters happening, and sat down in their seats for the lesson.  
The rest of the day passed smoothly. Jane and Edward talked throughout the entirety of their shared Spanish class, too low and too quickly for the humans to hear. Senora Lopez, however, did not fail to glance at them every so often, obviously hoping to catch them doing something wrong. She seemed to have it in for the Cullens- Jane, especially. She hated her for no real reason whatsoever. But no matter, because she could not catch her doing anything wrong anyway.  
Every other period passed quickly enough, and soon it came time for Edward to meet Jane at her locker and meet the rest of the family out at the car. He did so, and today it seemed he was actually smiling- something Jane was undoubtedly happy to see, after his last couple of weeks. He greeted her cheerily, one arm slung around her shoulders.  
"Well, you're certainly happy this afternoon," Jane said, looking up at him. "What's got you in such a good mood? Not that I'm complaining, of course. It's nice seeing you like this."  
Edward shrugged. "I don't know," he replied. "I think I'm just happy because I might finally be getting over this horrible attraction to Bella's scent. The more I talk to her, the less I…well, want to kill her. Maybe I can actually do this after all."  
"I never doubted you," Jane replied. "But I'm glad you're getting to know her. She is nice, isn't she? I think I might actually have a human friend. Imagine that!"  
"I think you may be right," Edward laughed in agreement. "But I have to say, there are definitely worse choices for friends…like Mike Newton, for example," he added, the words muttered under his breath.  
"I heard that," Jane said back to him. "You know, you really should stop this unnecessary grudge you have against Mike Newton. The poor boy is terrified of you- he probably thinks you want to kill him."  
"He wouldn't be that far off the mark," Edward grumbled back. But Jane shot a look at him that shut him up, and they walked the rest of the way to the parking lot in silence, and waited together by Edward's car for the rest of the family.  
"Hey, there's Bella," Jane pointed out, seeing the girl standing by her old pickup truck on the other side of the lot. "Poor girl has no balance, today was horrible for her." She frowned, seeing Bella slip slightly once again.  
"Yes, I've noticed she isn't exactly very coordinated," Edward replied. "And today was a bad day for everybody. Just look at all of their driving. It's a wonder anyone hasn't gotten in an accident-" but he cut off his speech mid-sentence, looking at something across the lot. Jane turned to look too, and noticed a blue van swerving around the corner. It was Tyler Crowley, another junior. He'd obviously hit a patch of ice, and had lost control of his car…which was now headed straight for Bella Swan. The girl would be crushed in seconds flat.  
Giving a quick glance at Edward, Jane saw his eyes widen in horror at the impending scene. He looked down at her, obviously wondering what to do. Save her, and risk the family's exposure, or let the event run its course, and risk a human girl's life? There wasn't really much of a question. Jane gave him a quick nod, knowing already what Edward's decision would be.  
Before any human could see him move, he was across the parking lot and had run in between Bella and the van. He tore her out of its path, his shoulders creating a brace from the blow that it would have caused her. He got the brunt of it, but of course it did nothing to him. Actually, the van was really the most damaged- Edward's shoulders molded a man-sized dent in the side of it. Bella was relatively unharmed, only hitting her head on the ground from the force of Edward's catch. It was over in less than two seconds flat.  
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Everyone was obviously in shock, not quite sure what had happened. Then the chaos began.  
Jane watched the scene unfold in front of her: people got out of their cars, rushing around Bella to see if she was hurt. Tyler Crowley leapt from his car, apologizing endlessly. His forehead was bleeding, and it looked as if his wrist might be fractured, but he did not seem to care much about that.  
Looking away from the humans for a moment, Jane measured the expressions on the rest of her family's faces. Alice was wide-eyed in shock. She kept darting her eyes from place to place, frowning every so often. She did not like to be caught by surprise. Jasper was trying to take in the emotions of everyone at the scene, annoyed by all the shock and tension he felt- it put him on edge. Plus, he was already trying not to focus on the fact that there was fresh blood nearby.  
Emmett just looked incredulous, like he could not believe that it had just happened. But, always one for a good source of entertainment, he seemed rather amused at it all- which was the exact opposite of Rosalie. The blonde vampire stood glaring in Edward's general direction, with a look that could probably freeze fire if she had a mind to do it.  
Jane was expressionless, taking in the looks of those around her. Her mind, however, whirled with what had just happened. She wished fervently to retreat into her invisibility, but forced herself to remain seen. Using her skill at a time like this would obviously prove disastrous- she wasn't _that_ stupid.  
Even though she had pretty much been the one to give Edward consent to save Bella, it still shocked her to see. Now their whole family was in jeopardy, because he had risked exposure. But even with that being so, Jane could not bring herself to care as much as the others did. She, for one, was glad that Edward had saved Bella. Jane would have been crushed if the human girl was killed. She was Jane's friend, and those were so few and far between.  
"He is _dead_," she heard Rosalie mutter under her breath. "I swear, when I get a hold of him, I will tear him apart."  
"Breathe, Rose," Emmett replied. "It'll be fine. Just, don't get too worked up, okay? We'll talk to him later and sort it out."  
Jasper said nothing, but the sudden feeling of tranquility that washed over everyone let Jane know that he was not just a passive observer in the situation. Even unwillingly, they had all calmed down significantly since everything happened. That definitely helped the situation, considering how within the next two minutes, Edward had stalked angrily towards them with a look that said, "don't even ask," and they'd all piled into his car to drive off in a tense, uncomfortable silence.  
He drove home first, dropping everyone off except for Jane. She insisted on accompanying Edward to the hospital, and he did not disagree. They spent the first moments of the drive in silence just as they'd done before, but then Edward turned to her and spoke.  
"Was this a horrible decision?" he asked, his eyes wide with worry. "I mean, I know it was undoubtedly stupid to put our family in jeopardy like that. But I couldn't just let the van hit her! And besides, if I had done so, and her blood had spilled…we would all be in a much worse situation than we are at present. Just…please, Jane. Tell me I did not make a mistake."  
"You didn't," she said firmly. "Trust me. I don't even think the humans noticed much of anything. And I was the one who said it was okay for you to do it, anyway. If the rest of the family should be mad at anybody, it should be me."  
"Don't be stupid," Edward replied. "It wasn't your fault. I should know better than to run across the parking lot and lift a car off of a girl. But maybe we will get lucky- perhaps she will have forgotten what happened. Or maybe she thinks that her head injury is worse than it actually was, and that she is imagining things. Humans are quick to believe the only most rational explanations. It could be fine." But his voice sounded doubtful.  
"Yes, perhaps it will be," Jane added, trying to sound positive. But her tone did not sound much better than his. They would have to do damage control at the hospital, once they figured out how much Bella actually remembered.  
Five minutes later, they were inside the hospital. Everyone knew Edward and Jane as Dr. Cullen's children, so they were immediately allowed to go past the front desk- unlike the half of the junior class that had shown up, and was currently waiting in the front to see what had happened.  
"Bella!" Jane exclaimed as she saw her in one of the beds. She skipped over to her, frowning to see her friend sitting there angrily, the neck brace they'd put on her back at the school thrown to the side. Edward hung back in the hallway outside of the ER. Coward. "How are you?"  
"I'm fine!" Bella exclaimed, throwing her hands up in obvious exasperation. "People really need to stop asking me that. Nothing happened to me. They should really putting Edward in a neck brace and dragging him here. He's the one that threw himself in front of a van and lifted it off me to stop me from getting hit."  
Jane tensed, and even without being able to see it she could sense that Edward was doing the same. But she could luckily process thoughts much more quickly than Bella, so her mask was back up before Bella could even really see anything. She raised an eyebrow at her. "You think he lifted the van off of you? Wow, you really must have hit your head harder than I thought." She chuckled softly, trying to brush it off.  
Bella wasn't having it. "He _did_," she hissed back, making sure that no one walking around heard her. "And more than that, I don't even know how he got to me in the first place! You guys were standing across the parking lot, but then a second later he was next to me!"  
Jane tried to keep the mask in place. "Bella…we were standing right next to you," she replied, immediately fabricating a story. She looked Bella right in the eye, adding a slightly condescending smile to make the lie seem more believable. She tried to ignore the part of her brain that felt so bad for lying to her friend, the bigger part of her knowing that it was for the girl's own good.  
"No you weren't," Bella said back. "I know what I saw. I want to talk to Edward- I saw him outside in the hall, before you came in."  
Damn. This girl was even more perceptive than she'd originally thought. Jane sighed, but eventually nodded and went out in the hallway. Carlisle was there, talking with Edward. They turned when they saw Jane.  
"She wants to talk to you," Jane said to Edward. "I told her that we were standing right next to her, and that she probably hit her head and isn't remembering things correctly…but she's stubborn. She doesn't believe me."  
Edward frowned. "I know. I'll just have to repeat the story. Hearing it twice might actually convince her that it's true." He sighed heavily, and then went inside to talk with Bella.  
Jane sat down on one of the chairs and pretended to flip through a magazine. Considering she didn't have Edward's ability to read minds, she couldn't hear much of what he and Bella were saying over the buzz of everything else going on around her. And though she could have eavesdropped if she wanted to, she decided to give them some privacy to talk through things.  
Twenty minutes later, Bella stormed out alongside her father (when had he shown up? Jane hadn't even seen him walk in). She was clearly frustrated with the situation. Edward walked out a minute later, not looking too happy himself.  
"She still doesn't believe us," he said. "Honestly, that is the most stubborn girl I have ever met. She kept insisting that I give her answers- she knows what she saw. I couldn't convince her that her mind had been playing tricks on her. And I don't think she's going to leave us alone about this. Actually, considering her behavior, I _know_ she isn't going to leave us alone."  
"Great," Jane replied sarcastically. "Now what are we going to do?"  
"I don't know," he sighed.  
She thought about it for a minute. "I think we should go home and talk to the rest of the family about this," she said finally. "At the very least, we should explain things. And diffuse some of the emotions that I am positive are ready to boil over…at least in Rosalie's case."  
Edward wrinkled his nose. "You're right," he replied. "She's probably going to kill me…let's get _that_ over with." He let out another sigh.  
Jane took his hand and tried to smile a bit. They went out to his car, and drove home to face whatever waited for them at home.

"How in the hell could you be so stupid?" Rosalie shouted. As soon as they'd walked into the living room, she had pounced. "Were you even thinking about what this could do to the family? Honestly, Edward- it's like you completely lost your mind. I mean, running across a parking lot and _pulling a van off of a girl_?" Her voice had gotten to the point of screeching.  
"Calm down, Rose," Emmett said from the couch where he sat. "You're getting to where only dogs can hear you."  
She just shot him a glare.  
"Rosalie, don't blame Edward," Jane said to her. "If anything, it was my fault. Edward looked at me just before he saved Bella, asking me if he should. He was questioning it before, but I was the one to tell him to do it."  
"Jane, don't," Edward said. "And Rosalie, keep everything you are currently thinking in your own head. This is _not_ Jane's fault- I would have done it anyway."  
"Well, you're both idiots!" she cried. "You _know_ what this could have done to our family! It's just lucky that people are more preoccupied with the human girl than us and they didn't notice anything, or we would have been done for!"  
"Um…I hate to interrupt," said a previously quiet Alice from one of the chairs in the corner. "But I should tell you that I've been having new visions since this afternoon. Bella isn't going to stop questioning us, or trying to figure out what's really going on. She's very stubborn, and she is planning to do whatever it takes to discover the truth about us." She looked around the room at everyone's faces before continuing. "And considering her tendency to attract bad luck, if she keeps getting too close like she will…it is _not _going to end well." There was no need for her to explain what she meant by that.  
"Oh, well that is _fantastic_!" Rosalie shouted. It started her off on another rampage, which Jane pointedly ignored in favor of sharing worried looks with Edward, both of them wondering the same thing.  
"What should we do?" she asked him quietly, the first one to say it aloud.  
"I don't know," he replied. "If we don't tell her anything, then things are going to get a lot worse for us. We'll have to move away, and even that might not fix things. But if we do tell her…"  
"Then that brings on a whole new set of problems," Jane supplied.  
Edward nodded. He turned to the rest of the people in the room. "What do you all think we should do? I want everyone's opinion on the matter, so that maybe we can figure something out."  
"Absolutely don't tell her anything!" Rosalie exclaimed. "At least not the truth. I'd rather you just killed her on purpose and made it look like an accident. At least then we could stay here."  
"_Rosalie_," Esme said sharply from her seat. Rosalie immediately shut up. For as much as she never listened to the rest of them, she always obeyed her mother figure. Esme then turned to Edward. "I think it is your decision," she said to him. "You do whatever you think is best. You know that Carlisle and I will support you in whatever you decide to do- we _all_ will," she added, looking pointedly at the sulking blonde on the opposite side of the room.  
"I don't care either way," Emmett said. "Heck, tell her. That'll have an interesting outcome. Whatever you do, it's bound to be amusing."  
"Thanks, Emmett," Edward replied sarcastically. He turned to his blonde brother in the corner.  
Jasper looked as if he didn't want to say what he really thought. "Well…" he said finally, "To be honest, I don't much like having her around. But that is only because of her scent, really. As a person, she seems fine. I guess I would just prefer you do whatever keeps us safer."  
From her place at his side, Alice finally decided to speak up. "I say tell her the truth!" she piped in enthusiastically. "I like Bella. I don't want her to die. Plus, Jane wants her to know too- though she may not know it yet. She likes having Bella around. And speaking as Jane's best friend, I think I have pretty good authority on her opinions."  
Edward turned to Jane. "Your thoughts?" he asked.  
Jane thought about it for a moment. Alice was right: she did like having Bella around. She couldn't quite figure out why, but something in that strange human was appealing- and not just at the surface level. A part of her yearned for her new friend to know their secret. But overall, it was Edward's decision, and she told him such.  
"I have to think about this for awhile," Edward said to them. "I have to decide what to do. I'll figure it out, though. I'll do whatever makes sense."  
At the end, they all concluded that he (and Jane too, as she was part of it) would decide what's best at the time, based on how Bella acted in the coming weeks. From there, they would see where things went.

In the weeks following 'the incident', as it came to be known, Alice's visions of course proved true. Bella did not let up on Edward or Jane, and constantly demanded to know answers about them. Edward, in his true nature, pretty much just completely stopped talking to Bella in the hopes that she would eventually go away. But Jane, knowing that would never happen, tried to lie and get her friend to perhaps stop wondering about them.  
Every day in English, Bella seemed to ask a thousand questions, hissed under her breath while the teacher wasn't paying attention. She wanted answers, and somehow had a knack for picking up even the carefully crafted lies, told with skill honed by eighty years of experience. Damn, that girl was observant.  
She wanted to know how Edward had gotten to her so quickly, and how he had lifted an entire car off of her seemingly effortlessly. But not only that, she wanted to know about other things she had picked up: why their eyes changed color every few weeks or so, why she never saw them eat or drink anything in the cafeteria, and why, when she accidently brushed Edward's hand in a Biology lab or Jane's when they both reached for a pencil that Bella had dropped, they had such unnaturally cold skin.  
_Damn_, Jane thought. This was getting into dangerous territory. She could see Bella slowly piecing things together. And while she may not come to a correct conclusion, she was certainly starting to come to _some_ conclusion. They would have to do something, and soon.

Jane and Edward discussed things at length, and finally decided to let Bella come to whatever conclusion she did. The human girl had proven herself trustworthy enough for them to know that she would not tell anyone whatever she learned, for which they- while still being nervous- were grateful.  
A few weeks later, she finally cornered them into talking to her outright. Jane looked at Edward and he nodded, knowing that this day had to come eventually. So the three of them headed outside of the school after the day ended. They walked into the woods that surrounded it, knowing that they would have the privacy they needed to talk there, instead of where they might be overheard.  
"You're not human," Bella spat out first, obviously eager to say something considering both Jane and Edward were being silent. "I mean…you _can't_ be. Besides the fact that you both have cold, incredibly pale skin, and I've never seen either of you never eat anything, and your eyes are always different colors…I know what I saw that day with the van. Neither of you were anywhere near me- and _please_ don't say that you were, because I know that it isn't true. Edward, you lifted the van off of me. There's no way a human could have done that. I know you aren't human- neither of you are. And…I think I've figured out the truth."  
Edward and Jane glanced briefly at each other.  
"And?" Jane prompted. "What do you think we are?"  
Bella seemed stunned silent for a moment, shocked by the fact that they weren't showering her with denial like they had been in the past weeks, but actually letting her continue with her theories. She suddenly blushed a bit, and had trouble speaking for a few seconds.  
"Um…well, there's this book I read," she finally got out. "And it said something that made me think it was describing you…about vampires." She looked between them, clearly ready for them to laugh or yell or _something_.  
"Interesting theory," Edward replied casually after a few seconds. "So, does this mean you think that we are vampires?"  
She blinked a few times, obviously unsure of herself. "Um…yes?"  
"Hm," Jane replied. "That is quite the interesting theory. I'll have to check out this book, to see what else it says."  
Bella was obviously too taken aback to say anything else. In the end, they neither confirmed nor died the girl's theory. It was a rather unspoken agreement that they knew she was right, but they never said anything on the subject. That way, though they did not expressly tell her anything, Bella stopped asking so many questions- thus taking her out of a potentially dangerous situation. Overall, the situation seemed to have diffused, and now things could settle down once more.


	10. Chapter 10

** Chapter 10**

Edward had to suppose that Bella Swan was not _all_ bad. After all, Jane seemed to like her- and Jane was obviously intelligent enough not to choose friends that would be bad for the family. Plus, now that she had a friend who she could trust with her secret, someone she could just spend time with, she seemed so happy- so much more carefree. And anything that made her happy made him want to stand on the roof and start singing.  
He began to overcome his problem with Bella. It was not easy, of course- actually, it was probably the most difficult thing he'd ever had to do- but he would do it for Jane's sake. She never said so out loud (and went invisible every time he tried to read her mind), but he could tell that it got to her, the fact that whenever she wanted to spend some time with Bella, he couldn't be around.  
So he decided that he would try.

After the almost-accident, Edward had at first tried to ignore Bella as much as possible. After all, she was getting far too close for her own good. It was for both her safety and the protection of his family that he try and stay away from her. But after that long discussion with everyone, and realizing that it was impossible- Bella would not give up trying to figure them out, no matter how much danger it brought upon her- he finally just decided to go along with whatever happened.  
He would not say that he was glad Bella knew their secret. In fact, the only thing he was glad about was the fact that he and Jane had not expressly told her anything- they just hadn't denied her theory. That way, they could not really even be blamed for telling her anything, technically.  
Well, he was also glad about the fact that Jane was happy with the situation. She, of course, had been in favor of letting Bella in on their secret. Edward could see that they had formed a friendship, and Jane was having trouble keeping so much of herself a secret. He couldn't blame her, really. She had kept herself a secret from _everyone_ for so long, whereas he had had his family. It had to have been tough on her, not having anybody to confide in for all those years that she was alone. Edward could hardly imagine it.  
Not that he hadn't seen bits of it in her mind. Sometimes, though he always tried to give Jane her privacy, he caught a strain of her thoughts that he just simply could not ignore.

_"So, where are you from?" asked a tall, blonde-haired girl. She and Jane sat next to one another in History class, and had been assigned to work on an in-class assignment together. Considering Jane had never spoken to anyone in that class before, the girl was obviously intrigued.  
Jane, sporting a feathered haircut along with a pair of bellbottomed jeans and a blue sweater, looked up at her. "Canada," she replied immediately.  
"Why did you come here?" the girl continued.  
Jane shrugged. "My parents moved to Africa." The story was fabricated at that very moment. She had never been one to think up stories on the spot, but she felt like being spontaneous for once. After all, what did it matter? "So I'm living with my aunt now, but she's always away on business."  
The girl nodded, and eventually went back to doing her assignment. Jane sighed internally. It was really always the same, with these kinds of things. She could not become friends with people, for their own good. So she could not ever talk to them much, and when she did it was almost one hundred percent lies. Though she was a quiet person, it still got lonely. Sometimes she longed for just one person she could share things with, but she knew that it was impossible_.

Edward, after having seen this scene unwillingly played in Jane's head one afternoon, had grown upset at the thought of it. He had six other people with him all the time, and a bond with all of them that allowed them to constantly be open with one another about everything. After she left, Jane didn't have that. And now, even though she had the Cullens, Edward was glad that she had broken the rules, of sorts, and found Bella. They were good for each other.  
He could see the similarities between Jane and her human friend. Bella was also shy and quiet. She resisted all the attention paid to her when she first moved to Forks, and hated that everyone seemed so interested with her. She was awkward, just as he remembered Jane in the first months of her life as a vampire. But, unlike with Jane, Edward was having a hard time finding Bella's awkwardness as endearing. He mostly thought of it as a hazard, considering how easily she could break her fragile skin and let the scent of her blood drift to him.  
Even so, he stood by his newfound verdict: at the end of the day, Bella Swan really was not all that bad.

Thankfully things seemed to quiet down after Bella found out their secret. Alice had given them all the forecast, so to speak, on everything that would happen. She reassured them that Bella would never tell a soul, and that she was completely trustworthy. So far that had proven true.  
The human girl had become a weird sort of part of their circle: friends with Jane and Alice, in a tentatively good relationship with Edward (he still kept his distance, though remained friendly), and not quite on any sort of speaking level with Emmett, Jasper, or Rosalie. With Emmett, though, it seemed more that Bella was terrified of him, not that Edward could blame her- after all, he was rather menacing to just about every human. Jasper kept a cool demeanor mostly to calm himself down; he had never been so close to a willing human before, and it was proving slightly difficult. And Rosalie just disliked her outright; subtlety was never exactly Rosalie's strong point. He figured a lot of it had to do with his blonde's animosity towards Jane, though, and not Bella herself. After all, Jane and Rosalie had for some reason never quite gotten over their strange hostility with one another.  
But over the weeks, the stress between the human and the vampire family began to dissipate. What had started off as a thick, almost visible tension watered itself down into either the amiable nature of the younger Cullen children, or an indifferent disregard from the older ones. That, it seemed, everyone could live with.  
Of course, things could their family could not remain perfect forever. Sooner or later, it seemed, everything would just have to fall apart.

It had been a fairly typical day in the Cullen house when everything once again took a turn for the worse. The fact that it was April now meant that it was almost always raining in Forks, so they did not have to leave and hide from human view very often. With that in mind, they all spent a lot of time in the house occupying themselves with whatever they pleased. Many a dull afternoon could find Edward at his piano bench, either playing classic pieces or composing his own.  
On that particular day, however, he and Alice and Jane were passing the afternoon with a favorite pastime of theirs: chess games.  
Given their special abilities, games were made especially interesting. Edward and Alice had figured out years ago just how fun chess could be between them, and when Jane had come back he had been eager to see if her skills made the game even more interesting. She had not disappointed him.  
At that moment, Edward was completely engrossed in observing a game between Jane and Alice. Matches between the two girls always seemed to last the longest of them all, perhaps because they often stopped to giggle about something. Honestly, they could be so similar that sometimes Edward had trouble telling them apart. But besides that, Alice would often get frustrated during their games. She could see the moves that Jane was going to make in her head, but then Jane would go invisible and her future would abruptly disappear from Alice's head. It had been one of those things that had most annoyed Alice during all the years while she kept an eye on Jane before her return, and she'd never quite gotten over it. She hated working blind at things- even chess games. It always threw her for a loop.  
During this game, Edward watched attentively as Alice slid a pawn forward, and it was immediately knocked aside by a rook that floated in the blank space that had been Jane not five minutes before. He laughed, watching his little black-haired sister get frustrated and start swatting at empty air. A giggle erupted from off to the side, and he deduced that Jane had jumped up in order to avoid Alice's hands. He chuckled, watching the two girls play at their familiar game.  
All of a sudden, however, Alice abruptly stopped and dropped back into her seat. A blank expression washed over her face, her eyes unfocused and far away. Jane immediately came back into view and sat down across from her. She and Edward exchanged worried glances; they knew that look of their sister's.  
"Alice?" said Jasper from the other side of the room. He had been watching TV with Emmett, but when he saw her face change he immediately looked over at her in worry. Within a second he was at her side, his arm around her shoulders. "What is it?" he asked her. "What are you seeing?"  
She immediately shook herself out of the vision and looked worriedly between everyone who now faced her. "I can hardly believe it…" she said softly, more to herself than anything else. Then louder she added, "It's the Volturi. They know that Bella knows about us. And if we don't do something to rectify the situation, they are going to come here."  
Everybody's eyes widened simultaneously. The Volturi, the vampire royal family of sorts, kept strict rules about these sorts of things. They were the biggest and oldest coven of vampires in the world, and kept order among their kind. A human knowing about the existence of vampires was a violation of perhaps the biggest rule that the Volturi had set, and they would obviously want to fix that immediately. That much was obvious. But a glaring question that had to be answered stuck out in Edward's mind.  
"How could they possibly have found out about this?"  
Alice immediately looked at him. "I…don't know," she admitted, defeated. She hated not knowing things. "Someone had to have told them, though I don't know who it could have been. I have been monitoring Bella even more carefully than usual since she found out, but she has kept her word and not told a soul. And I know that none of us have said a thing, so I don't know who on Earth it could be."  
_This is all my fault_, came a tiny mental voice, sticking out amongst the usual din that Edward heard.  
"That is absolutely not true!" Edward exclaimed in response as he turned towards Jane. He hadn't really realized that he'd shouted until he saw her raise her eyebrows in shock.  
"Yes it is!" she yelled back. "If I hadn't gone and broken all the rules, we would not be in this mess! Honestly, ever since she came here I have just made one bad decision after another in regards to Bella. Things would have been so much easier if I kept my stupid desire to have a human friend to myself, and not let it manifest into such a disaster. Honestly, it'd be easier if I just shut up completely. Don't deny it: this whole mess is entirely my fault."  
"No, it isn't," came a soft voice from the bottom of the staircase.  
Stunned, Edward turned to face where it had came from, entirely sure that he had just made that up. It _couldn't_ be the voice he was thinking of.  
"It isn't your fault," Rosalie repeated, clarifying herself for every one of her family members who now stared at her in utter shock. "I can actually understand where Jane is coming from. She just wanted a human friend- someone that she could share herself with, perhaps in the hopes that she could gain back some of her humanity as well. For once, she could be just like any other normal teenage girl."  
Edward looked at Jane, who nodded. "That's exactly it," the soft-spoken brunette replied. "How did you know?"  
Rosalie gave her a sad smile. "Because I feel the same way," she said back. "Jane, most of the time there is nothing I would like more than to be human again. Don't get me wrong; I am grateful to Carlisle for saving my life. If he hadn't, I would never have gotten to meet Emmett." She paused for a moment, and smiled at her one true love. "But there are times when I want to cry at the thought that I will never again regain my humanity."  
She paused for a moment to gauge Jane's reaction. The dark-haired girl seemed stunned into complete silence, so Rosalie continued. "Back when I was a human, I longed for nothing more than to get married and have a family. I was beautiful- shallow, but beautiful nonetheless- and I wanted to get married to a handsome, wealthy man and have the perfect family of which I'd always dreamed. I thought of nothing else. Then I almost died, of course, and was transformed into this new life. And I was grateful to not have died, but still I held on to that dream- I knew nothing else throughout my life. When I found Emmett, I knew that I would love him for the rest of my existence. But I am still saddened by the fact that we will never grow old together, rocking in chairs on our front porch while our grandchildren run around at our feet. It may be silly, but I still hold on to that wish, even knowing that it can never come true. So for you, getting to have a friend that is a human and that you can share your thoughts with…maybe it is sort of the same."  
Jane nodded once again. "It is. I never had any friends when I was a human. I was always so shy, and never knew anybody besides my brother. Plus, I did not get the chance to meet other people- I always had to work for my parents. My entire life was lived at home. Then, even after I was saved from death and began this new life, I ended up alone for such a long time." She suddenly turned to face everyone else. "And don't get me wrong- I love you all, you have been more of a family to me than I could have ever imagined, even when I do not deserve it."  
Edward was about to argue, but Jane shut him up with a firm look and continued to speak. "But I have never had a friend before- at least, not one that I actually met and got to know on my own. It was a good experience, meeting Bella. I came to realize that I like her because she reminds me much of myself when I was a human. She is really the first friend that I ever made myself. It is one of those human experiences that I never got to have when I _was_ one."  
She then turned back to the blonde girl. "So Rosalie, I understand exactly what you mean. I could not quite comprehend before why I liked Bella so much, and felt it so necessary to be her friend and let her in on our secret, but now I get it. Your desire is not silly at all- in fact, it is even less so than mine. You wanted an entire life. I only wanted someone that I could confide in; a human friend to share myself with like any other teenager."  
Rosalie laughed pleasantly. "Your desires are no less valid than mine," she replied. "You know Jane, perhaps you and I are more alike than we thought."  
"Perhaps," Jane chuckled softly in return.  
Edward stared between them, incredulous. He could not help but wonder if that had really just happened. Of course, he could not dwell on that thought for long, because Alice was quick to interrupt.  
"Be that as it may," she piped in, "That still does not help us with figuring out who might have told the Volturi about Bella. Does anybody have any ideas?"  
No one had a clue. They spent hours trying to figure out what might have happened to cause the Volturi to find out about this, but not one of the members in their family could think of a thing.  
The only thing that they could say for sure, at the end of the day, was that if they did not fix things soon then things would _not_ end well. Once the Volturi had it in mind to do something, there was just about no chance of them ever changing their decision. It would be easier to try and change the rotation of the Earth than get the Volturi to change their minds about something.  
Alice explained to them all the details about the situation: they knew that Bella was aware of their identities, and wanted to immediately repair what damage had already been done. After all, the Volturi did not trust humans. They, unlike the Cullens, were "true" vampires- as in, not vegetarians. Humans were therefore not seen on the same level as them, and were not to be considered friends; especially not as friends with which one shared the biggest secret of their supposedly anonymous existence. If a human knew that vampires were actual creatures that lived in this world, then this must be dealt with immediately- starting with the destruction of the human, and ending with the destruction of the one who had told the human the truth. Edward knew, of course, what this meant: they would want to destroy him and Jane.

A week later, they were no closer to figuring out how to solve this problem than they had been at the very beginning. They had no idea how to fix things with the Volturi, and according to Alice's visions, time was running out fast. They had to figure out what to do. But they did not even have the slightest clue where the information to the Volturi could have come from, which put a serious hindrance on their ability to solve this issue. That was, until yet another not-so-special afternoon when an envelope addressed to Jane, plain white and laying unobtrusively amongst the bills and magazines, came in the mail. The paper it held inside contained only two words, handwritten in black ink:

I told.

Immediately, Jane's mind began flashing with confused thoughts. The questions flickered so quickly through her head, Edward could not even keep up. He tried to sort through her thoughts, hoping that if he could see what she was thinking then maybe he could help her figure it out. And then, everything abruptly went blank. And when he looked up, he was not surprised to see that she was gone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

It had not made sense at first. Who on Earth could have told the Volturi about the situation with Bella? There was no reason for anyone to tell them; there was no one she knew that wanted to hurt her or Edward that much.  
Jane had never met the Volturi in person; she had only heard about them. She knew that they were like vampire royalty. They kept order amongst their kind, which included 'dealing' with situations such as this. Humans were not to know that vampires were not just the stuff of myths; that was a strict order. She also knew that their way of 'dealing' with things like this was to destroy all possibilities of things getting further than they already had. They would have to get rid of any and all evidence that a human knew about them, and then prevent it from happening again by extinguishing whatever had caused the problem in the first place.  
In other words, either her, Edward, or both of them were in serious danger of being destroyed.  
Vampires, as Jane had learned long ago during one of her many question-and-answer sessions with Carlisle, could not be killed in the same sense of the word as humans could be. They were not alive in the same way, so therefore their deaths were not the same. There was, as Carlisle had told her, only one proven way of destroying a vampire that was known in the world: one must rip him apart, then burn every piece separately to make sure that they did not reattach themselves. It was extremely unpleasant to think about, especially know that there was a very real possibility that it might happen to her.  
"I am not going to let that happen to you," Edward said roughly, startling Jane. She hadn't even really realized what she'd been thinking about.  
"Well it might happen!" Jane shouted back. After seeing his face, though, she immediately regretted her words. He looked absolutely horrified, especially since he could not deny it. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "I'm just edgy because of this whole thing…don't worry- I'm sure we will figure this all out."  
She said it mostly to appease him, though. For all Jane knew, the Volturi would come for them without them ever figuring out a thing. She only hoped that they would just want her, and not Edward. She would have to convince them- whoever they were, she still didn't really know- that it was entirely her fault, and that Edward had had nothing to do with any of it. As long as they only destroyed her, she would be fine. She could not have him die too.  
But because Edward would immediately grow angry whenever Jane's thoughts turned to something like that, she had taken to only pondering their situation when she was invisible. At least then, he could not hear her thoughts. She found herself spending a lot of time turning invisible. Actually, she could not remember the last time when she had used her skill this much. It had to have been when she was out on her own. It frustrated Edward and Alice, not getting to read her mind or see her future, respectively. But Jane figured it was for their own good. It was either this, or the anger she knew came from them knowing what she was holding in her mind.

For weeks, the entire family wondered incessantly who it could possibly have been that told the Volturi about them. Not one of the Cullens could talk of anything else; this was far too important. And none even had a clue who it could have been. That was…until the day the letter arrived for Jane.  
It was such a simple, inoffensive thing: a piece of paper contained in a white envelope, her name scrawled on the front of it. There were only two words written on the paper: "I told."  
It was so simple. Yet it told Jane everything she needed to know; and after reading it, a sudden coldness ran through her body. She would have recognized that handwriting anywhere, though it had been sixty years since she had last seen it. Immediately, she retreated back into her invisibility, knowing that Edward was listening in to the rapid thoughts firing through her mind. And he did _not_ want to hear what she was thinking about now.

_Jane strolled along the streets of a small Maryland town, passing signs in shop windows that all displayed similar slogans: "Support our troops!"; "Remember our boys overseas- send a care package today!"; "Grow a victory garden and help our country win the war!"  
She sighed internally. The year was 1944, and World War II was in full swing. Everyone in the United States seemed to be involved somehow, whether it was men joining the army and going overseas, or women taking over everything back home. Either way, it was all that anybody could ever talk about. Jane, not involved with anything having to do with the war, sat by and watched as a passive observer.  
Little did these humans know that there was a war going on in their very own backyard. None of them had any idea of the reason so many of their friends and neighbors kept disappearing without a trace, never to be heard from again, only being identified some time later through evidence left at the site of their deaths: mother's necklace, grandfather's pocket watch, the engagement ring that had been passed through his family for generations. They all attributed it to an accident; or, when it became more prevalent, to a serial killer.  
Not one person would suspect it was the work of a tiny, soft-spoken sixteen-year-old girl with blood red eyes.  
Of course, it wasn't like she was living among them. She was far too dangerous for that. Instead, she spent almost all of her time in the woods, only coming out when she needed to feed. But when she did show her face to the humans, it was obvious in the eyes of her victims that none of them suspected her to be the vicious killer that she was until it was already too late.  
On that night, Jane was thoroughly bored of her surroundings. She was antsy, because she had gone too long without feeding once again. She always managed to go too long between hunts, constantly having to remind herself that she needed sustenance. But she hated hunting; it was a chore, rather than an enjoyment. After she had sated her thirst, she always felt guilty, and vaguely depressed. Everything was exhausting, and she needed some sort of change.  
Walking through town, she passed by all of the buildings she'd come to know in the past couple of weeks since moving there: drugstore, library, run-down pub on the corner of the street. By chance, the door of the pub happened to be open. And she smelled something familiar coming from inside.  
Jane immediately cocked her head to the side and sniffed the air to make sure that she was not just dreaming. But nope…there it was again. There among the heady fragrance of human blood, and the rather unappealing stench of alcohol, was the sweet scent of a vampire. It was unmistakable…but what was a vampire doing in the same small town as her- and in a bar, no less?  
Immediately, Jane went inside to investigate. She felt awkward and unsure among the large, raucous men that dominated the place, but she trudged on in search of what she was looking for. She pushed past the drunken patrons, ignoring the whistles and catcalls that she knew, considering she seemed to be the only female there, were directed at her. She followed the scent, letting it lead her to an oddly silent corner of the bar where only one man- obviously good-looking even from her obscured view, and clearly not older than about twenty years old- sat, lazily spinning the cap of a beer bottle between his fingers and not drinking a thing.  
When the air reached him, he looked up in obvious surprise. When he met Jane's gaze, she finally got a good look at him in the dim pub light. He had the wild, unsettled look of one that never stayed in one place very long; a wanderer, like herself. His blonde hair was unkempt, and the dusting of facial hair across his chin further added to his rugged appearance. Of course, it was the crimson eyes that told Jane all that she needed to know. They seemed to pierce her as he stared at Jane unabashedly, smiling a wide, predatory sort of grin that sent an interesting thrill up her spine.  
"I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone like you around here," he said in greeting. His voice was rough and gravelly, like he had just woken up from a heavy sleep even though she knew that that was impossible.  
"Likewise," Jane replied, and sat on the empty stool next to him.  
He continued to smile at her, his incisors seeming even sharper than others' of her kind had looked. But perhaps it was just a trick of the light.  
"Damien Hunter," he said, stretching one hand towards her.  
She raised one eyebrow at him.  
"I know," he laughed. "The name is rather ironic. But I swear, it's just a coincidence. Fitting, isn't it?"  
She laughed. "Very fitting. And I'm Jane Blackwell." She stuck out her own small hand. It disappeared almost completely inside his.  
He smiled widely at her. She tried to ignore the sudden bit of uneasiness that welled up within her in favor of concentrating solely on the thrill that being near Damien gave her. She could tell already that this would play out interestingly._

_ They stuck together for almost seven years after that night. It was a relationship based mainly on their most primary needs, and they worked well together in their hunts. For awhile, they seemed unstoppable.  
Jane fancied herself in love with Damien, but she knew that it wasn't really true. She more liked to think that she was in love with him- probably because it gave a validation to why she stayed with him for such a long time. He was a good asset to have during the hunt: strong, quick, and sharp-minded. Plus, it did not seem to hurt that he was handsome, either. Overall, Damien was everything that Jane figured she should expect from a companion. And they went well together.  
But things were not as brilliant as they had first seemed. Jane felt stuck, and grew increasingly restless and annoyed with her life- and with Damien. She had already begun to question their relationship, especially considering how she was realizing the immorality of hunting humans. Her conscience was beginning to get the better of her, and it was taking its toll on her current situation.  
It was one night in October of 1951 that caused Jane to make her decision.  
She and Damien had deciding to go hunting, of course. They had not fed in awhile, at her insistence. Even with him, she did not like to hunt much; it gave her that depressed feeling that she so hated, and had begun to realize it was because the toll of so much death was wearing on her. Yet even so, she did not stop altogether. Damien had convinced her not to; after all, why deny themselves the basics of their very essence? It would be against her nature to do so.  
But Jane insisted on less frequent hunting trips, and now it had been a few weeks since they had last fed. Because of that, they were both on edge. When Jane was thirsty, she grew restless and easily agitated. Damien just got angry. And he had no one else to take it out on but her.  
She wasn't speaking to him as they ran through town that night, searching for the first available prey that they could find. She simply concentrated on tracing humans' scents and pointedly ignoring the glances he kept giving her.  
"This is all your fault you know," he said gruffly, breaking the tense silence that had fallen between them at the beginning of their hunt. "If you did not insist on this asinine plan of only hunting every few weeks, I would not get mad. And not feeding doesn't do you any good either, you know. You act like a complete bitch."  
Jane chose to ignore that statement, mostly because she had caught a scent on the breeze. "Look- humans," she said simply. "They are close. We can feed now, and you can stop getting so damn angry."  
He grumbled a string of profanities under his breath, but otherwise did not respond. He simply gave the signal- a quick nod of the head- for Jane to follow him, which she did with a tiny sigh. They crept upon the humans that were now within earshot. It was a man and a woman, sitting on a park bench and chatting amiably. The scent drifted once again towards the two vampires, who looked at one another with the same bloodthirsty gaze. It was over before the humans had ever even realized what had happened.  
Once Jane had lifted her head from the now drained body, fully sated and in a substantially better mood than she had been only minutes before, she turned towards Damien so that they could destroy the evidence and leave. But before she could, something caught her attention: the slightest of gasps, coming from behind a tree on the other side of the park. And when she looked, she could see a bit of fabric sticking out, signaling that they were not alone.  
Damien, of course, heard it too. He stood up, gave his signal once again to Jane, and then took off towards the tree. Jane followed dutifully behind, knowing it would do no good to protest.  
They reached the other side of the park less than a second later. Damien leaned casually against the tree, and both vampires looked around to see what had caused the noise. When they did, they came face to face with a young girl, obviously no older than six or seven. Her gold hair was tied partially back with a ribbon, and her cherubic face was blotchy from crying. It was obvious from the horrified look in her wide blue eyes that she had seen everything. At the sight of her, Damien just grinned. Jane felt her stomach drop. She knew that grin.  
"Damien, _no_," she said firmly. Both of them turned to look at her, the girl still terrified but the male vampire looking simply amused.  
"Oh but Jane, it would be such fun," he replied with a mock pout. He then resumed his wide smile, baring his sharp teeth at the little human. It had the effect he desired: she began to tremble, obviously trying not to cry.  
"You can't!" Jane pleaded. "She's just a little girl. And besides, there's no reason for it- we already hunted."  
"My amusement is the reason," Damien replied easily. He reached out and began to twirl a lock of the girl's hair between his fingers, chuckling slightly at her reaction. "Do I need anything else?" He looked back up at Jane, his eyes boring into her as if daring her to protest.  
"Please don't do this," she begged, desperately trying to help the increasingly hopeless situation. She knew that her words were in vain; once Damien fixated himself on something, it was impossible to break him from it. The girl's fate had been sealed- but that did not mean that Jane wasn't going down without trying.  
"Damien- _please_," she said again. She stepped towards him and tugged at his arm, but he easily hit her away as if swatting at a fly. He continued with his 'game' as if nothing had interrupted him. Jane wanted there to be something- anything- that she could do, but he was much stronger than her, and would not hesitate to use his strength against her if it came to that. He'd done so in the past, when she had protested, and he would do it again. Nothing would get in his way.  
Knowing this, Jane realized that she did not want to be part of what would happen. She did not even want to be near it. She gave one last, apologetic glance at the girl, knowing that the image of her tear-streaked face would not be something that was easily forgotten. And then she ran, deciding that she would keep running until her legs had carried her to somewhere far, far away from him.  
The last thing that Jane heard, as she sprinted into the darkness of the night, was a high-pitched scream and a rumbling, sadistic laugh._

With a shudder, Jane returned to her visible self. She looked around, and quickly realized that the entire family was staring at her. They had probably been doing so for awhile now; she did not even know how long she had been invisible. Time tended to lose all meaning when she was on her own.  
"I know who it is," she said to their silent, expectant faces. "I would have recognized the handwriting anywhere. His name is Damien. We used to…travel together, during the '40s." She tried to block them out, but Jane could not help the few flashes of images from her 'traveling' days that got through her head.  
Edward let out a growl from his chair in the corner. Jane cringed; he had obviously seen what was in her mind.  
"Well, why would he do something like this?" Esme asked from the other side of the room, ignoring Edward's reaction.  
Jane shook her head. "I have no idea…but we didn't exactly part on the best terms, which probably has something to do with it. I would not put it past him to have been searching for me all these years, trying to get back for leaving him. It has to be something along those lines. I don't know why now, when he could have done so earlier…but nonetheless, I am positive that it was him."  
"Well, don't worry Jane- we will fix this," Carlisle said reassuringly. "There will be some way to rectify the situation."  
She nodded, managing a small smile. The family talked for awhile more, then decided to disperse, gather themselves, and think more on the subject in the morning after they had cleared their heads.  
"Edward," Jane said softly, catching him just outside the living room door after everyone had gone. She put a tentative hand on his arm and nervously looked up to meet his gaze. "Look, whatever you saw…it's nothing. So much happened since then, and it was sixty years ago, and trust me…it is absolutely nothing." _Trust me, _she willed him silently. Her eyes searched his, pleading with him to believe her.  
"I do trust you," he replied. But he spoke woodenly, with a gaze that he fixed on a spot on the wall behind her ear. His topaz eyes were blank, giving nothing of his emotions away. Crap…he was mad.  
Jane sighed and felt like crying as Edward walked away. She cursed herself internally for not blocking her thoughts better. He had only seen the worst flashes in her mind, which obviously did not exactly make her look good. If he knew the whole story, of course, perhaps he would not be so quick with his anger…  
But it was better if he did not know. This was her situation. She had been stupid enough to start things with Damien in the first place, and now she would have to bear the burden of that. She sighed again. She fully deserved everything she got. Whatever had been burgeoning between herself and Edward before this…well, he did not need to be with someone like her.  
Now thoroughly depressed, Jane tried to focus her entire energy on fixing the problem that now lay before them. She tried to ignore the fact that she had completely ruined things with Edward, and instead focused on finding a solution for the whole Volturi-issue.  
Of course, that was easier said than done, because she couldn't think of a thing. Perhaps she was doomed after all. Trying to resign herself to her fate, Jane just hoped that they would only want her, and not Edward as well.


	12. Chapter 12

** Chapter 12**

Edward kept up a string of angry thoughts throughout the entire rest of the night. He tried to let out his frustrations on the piano, but even that did not seem to calm him down. Every time he so much as put his fingers to the keys, his mind would once again drift to one of the quick flashes he had unwillingly seen in Jane's mind, and now refused to leave his.

_The tiny girl was locked in a fierce embrace with a blonde, rugged-looking man. He was about nineteen or twenty years old, obviously older than Jane's sixteen years. The pale skin and red eyes that were visible whenever he looked up from her gave away what he was.  
He kissed her fiercely, not taking things slow or gently. He simply took what he wanted from her, and nothing else. He did, however, smile at her when they kissed- an intense, predatory grin that seemed to have the ability to make flesh crawl, or hearts weaker than theirs stop in fear._

Edward growled once again. The image simply would not leave his mind, and it threatened to drive him to insanity. He wanted to yell and throw things and generally act on his rage, but he knew that that was not the most constructive solution. Plus, Esme would be upset if he broke anything; she always hated when they got mad and took it out on the house. So all he could do was sit in his room, brooding over the anger boiling hotter than the venom in his veins.  
He mused over the fact that this Damien had to be the stupidest man in the history of the entire world. How could he have gotten someone like Jane, then have been stupid enough to act the way he did with her? How could have kissed her, without pausing at her throat to inhale where her sweet scent was most concentrated? How could he not have pressed his lips softly across her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, finding the parts of her skin that were most reactive to his touch? Damien had been with the single most fascinating girl in the entire world, and he had been stupid enough to lose her. What an idiot.  
And yet, Edward could not help the awful spark of jealousy that flared up within him at the image he had seen. After all, even though he'd been stupid enough to lose her…Damien had had Jane at one point. And that was much more than Edward could say for himself.  
For days (or it could have been mere hours- time meant nothing to him), Edward did nothing but simmer in his frustration. He hated every single thought in his mind, because they all concentrated on Jane and Damien together. But now, he was done just thinking about it. This unmentionable bastard was after Jane, putting her in very real danger. And Edward had to fix it.

It was Alice that ultimately provided the solution for him. She was sitting in Carlisle's study, by herself for once instead of in the family room surrounded by everyone else, and she was clearly having a vision. Edward sat beside her, and patiently waited for her to rejoin the world of the present. When she finally recovered, she smiled at him.  
"Go, Edward," she said. He looked at her quizzically. "Go to Italy and talk to the Volturi," she clarified. "You've been thinking about it- don't even try and deny it, because I see everything- and you should go. He's there." There was no need for her to say which _he_ she meant. "I'll think of something to tell everyone," she added. "I know you don't want me telling them where you are."  
Edward nodded. His family would try and join in with helping him, or try and talk him out of it. He didn't want help, or to be convinced not to go. This was something that he needed to do, and that he needed to do without them. "Thanks, Alice," he said, and ran to grab his things and leave.  
With his passport tucked safely in the pocket of his jacket, and the keys to his Volvo in his hand, Edward made his way out to the garage. Fully intending to start the car and speed off to the airport, he began to press the button to unlock it. But an engine revved to his left, and when he looked over he saw Jane sitting placidly in the driver's seat of her Volkswagen. He gave her a confused glance, and stepped over to the passenger's side door. She rolled down the window, and he stuck his head inside with the same questioning expression on his face.  
"I know you did not think that you were going to do this alone," she answered his silent question simply. "Now, get in."  
He wanted to protest, but something in her intense tawny eyes told him not to argue with her. So he got in the car without a word, and did not speak until they had already gotten on the highway. And even when he finally did say something, it was only one word. "How…"  
"Alice told me," she replied.  
Of course. He should have known not to trust that sneaky little demon he called his sister. She may be small, but she was far more diabolical than anyone Edward had ever known.  
The entire drive to the airport was filled with a tense, horrible silence. He kept glancing at Jane, but she faced forward, keeping her eyes locked firmly on the road the whole time. When they got there, she parked the car and got out, then pulled something out of the trunk and thrust it at him without a word. When he looked down and saw a black leather duffle bag now in his hands, he looked at her, thoroughly confused.  
"Luggage," Jane said. She hoisted her own bag over her shoulder "They look at you weirdly if you go somewhere without anything, and this way it'll seem more normal. We can't afford to get stopped, either."  
Edward nodded. It made complete sense- he only wondered why he had not thought of it to begin with. Bag in hand, he followed Jane wordlessly into the airport and stood beside her as she purchased their plane tickets.

Fifteen hours, a layover in New York, and two flights later, they landed in Florence. Thankfully, Jane had remembered to book a flight that got them there at eleven o'clock at night, so they would not have to hide due to sunlight. They could be on their way immediately.  
"We need a car," Edward pointed out.  
Jane looked at him for a moment as if he was an idiot. "I called when we were in New York," she replied. "There should be a car waiting for us at the rental place down the street. Now come on, the shuttle leaves in five minutes."  
_Oh_. Now he felt like he really _was_ an idiot. What had he been doing during their layover in New York when Jane was on the phone? Edward tried to think. Oh, right. That was when he had spent a good twenty minutes staring out the window at the rain, once again trying to block the unwanted images from his mind. He had hardly even noticed what she was doing at the time, being too wrapped up in his own thoughts. Honestly, sometimes Edward really was a jerk.  
They took the shuttle to the rental facility, and Edward stood by as Jane filled out the necessary forms. As they walked out to the garage, Jane tossed him the keys so that he could drive. He grabbed them and pressed the button, which unlocked a shiny black Ferrari in the corner. He raised an eyebrow at her.  
Jane just shrugged. "When in Rome- or rather, Florence…" she said simply, the first hint of a smile that he had seen from her in days creeping upon her face. But it was gone after a moment, and she slid into the passenger's seat of the car without another word.  
Edward followed suit, and after tossing both of their bags into the trunk, he got in and started the engine. It roared to life, and he pressed down on the gas pedal and sped out onto the road.  
It was a good two-hour drive to Volterra, the city where the Volturi resided, even with Edward averaging a hundred miles per hour the entire way there. He snuck glances at Jane every so often throughout the drive. She was looking out the window at the landscape, taking in the sights of the Tuscan countryside as they passed by. She had been dozens of places in Europe: Germany, Austria, Ireland, the entire UK, all the Scandinavian countries…but never Italy. Edward figured it was because it was too sunny, which made sense. She would have wanted to remain as surreptitious as possible.  
But he sighed inwardly at the thought that her first trip to Italy had to be like this. She should experience it the right way. _Some day, I am going to bring her back here and show her what it is really like_, he vowed. Then he remembered why they were there in the first place, and how because of that they might never get the chance. But he pushed that thought aside almost immediately. Edward was _not _going to let that happen.  
"Welcome to Volterra," he said finally, and nodded his head in the direction of the mountain ahead. He could see the city in front of them, though it was still a few miles away. Volterra was at the top of the mountain, mostly hidden behind a thick stone wall that had been built hundreds of years before. It was an imposing place, but one of the safest cities around. Even Edward could not deny that the Volturi did their job well.  
At the entrance to the city on top of the cragged mountain, a guard ushered them in through the front gate after Edward spoke to him in a low, smooth voice. The guard had been reluctant to let them in- after all, it was rather strange for people to randomly decide on visiting in the middle of the night- but with some heavy persuasion in both verbal and monetary form, he let the two vampires past the gate and into the city.  
"This way," Edward instructed after parking the car on a small side street. He led Jane to the largest and most intimidating of the buildings, which housed the entire Volturi within its walls. He was suddenly glad for his inability to have human reactions, because he was sure that if it were possible, his heart would be racing. He did not enjoy dealing with the Volturi.  
Once inside, he first saw the empty desk at the front of the foyer that usually had a human sitting behind it.  
Jane looked up at him quizzically. "They have a receptionist?"  
Edward nodded. "They have tours of the building," he replied, but did not elaborate on that particular subject anymore. "And they have a human- usually a woman- who deals with that."  
She raised her eyebrows. "But isn't that dangerous, or something, having a human around like that?"  
Edward sighed. He had hoped she would not ask a question like that. "Well, not really. They know what they are doing. They keep the woman around as long as they need her, and then they…release her."  
She frowned, but then her eyes widened as realization hit. He shook his head sadly. He had wanted to protect her, but now she knew just what sort of creatures she would be dealing with.  
They could not dwell on this any longer, however, because soon they were approached by a large figure in a long black coat.  
"Edward," he greeted, a smile on his face. "How good to see you. We have been expecting you, of course. Though I did not know you would come here accompanied. And I must say, I do not recall ever having been fortunate enough to meet your friend." He turned to the girl in question.  
"Felix," Edward replied. "This is Jane Blackwell. She is a member of my family." His words were said as a simple statement of fact. He wanted Felix to know that it was not a guess, or a question. Jane _was_ a part of the family- as much so as any of the rest of the Cullens.  
The taller man smiled. "Well Jane, it is nice to meet you. Come, both of you. They are waiting for you."  
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jane look at him in confusion.  
"The Volturi coven," he whispered in her ear as they walked through the darkened halls. "Felix is one of the guards. Now we are going to meet the actual members- the elders, more or less."  
She nodded and followed along without a word. Her face was expressionless, not revealing any emotions she might have. Edward had to admire her bravery. He knew how frightening it must be for her, not knowing what to expect. Heck, he was still uneasy around the members of the Volturi, and he had met them many times before. But he preferred not to think about his previous meetings with them. They had, after discovering his skill, always tried to get Edward to join them. The Volturi admired power, wherever they could get it. Edward would be an asset to them; but he would not join- he was adamant on that decision. This frustrated Aro, Caius, and Marcus- the coven. But Edward stuck to his convictions.  
Their journey through the damp, barely-lit corridors ended in a cavern-like room. It was not very much brighter than the halls had been, but it did have the plus of having furniture, and walls that were not covered in dew. Three men, stark white in color and with skin no thicker than paper, sat in large, throne-like chairs against the far wall, surrounded by more members of the guard that did not leave their sides, but remained hidden in the shadows. The Volturi elders.  
"Edward," the black-haired one in the middle greeted with a smile, just as Felix had done. "It is nice to see you here. I assume you have been keeping well over the years, though it really has been too long. How is Carlisle?"  
"He is very well, thank you Aro," Edward replied. "I am sure that he sends his regards. I know he wishes to visit you when he can."  
"Tell him that he is welcome here anytime," said the old vampire. "As you all are, of course. It truly is good to see you. Though, I suppose the reason for your visit does not have something to do with you changing your mind in joining us?" He looked over at Jane as he talked.  
"No, it does not," he said. "As I am sure you could have guessed, this is Jane Blackwell. I know, of course, that you are aware of our situation."  
Aro nodded. "We are. And I assume that you have figured out by now who is responsible for disclosing to us the…situation." As he spoke, one of the figures that flanked the elders moved into the light. He wore a familiar grin on his face that Edward recognized immediately, though he had not actually met the man before. At his side, Jane let out a tiny gasp. Damien.  
Edward began to growl under his breath, but silenced it when Jane put her hand in his to calm him down. Seeing this, Damien's smile turned into a heated glare aimed entirely at Edward. But he simply composed himself and held Jane's hand tighter, less agitated now that he knew he had the upper hand in the situation.  
"Gentlemen, please," Aro interrupted calmly. "If we could get back to the issue at hand…which reminds me- Miss Blackwell, I do not believe that I have ever had the pleasure of making your acquaintance." He smiled softly, his full attention- as well as all the others in the room- now fully directed on her.  
Edward tried to hold back a grimace. He knew how much Jane hated attention. And as he could see from her mind, she was nervous. She was trying to fight her every instinct to hide herself, and remain brave through whatever happened. He could not help but marvel at her once again.  
"It is very nice to meet you," she replied in a soft yet steady voice.  
Aro's smile widened. "Come here, dear girl," he said pleasantly, stretching out his hand towards her.  
Edward looked at her, his eyes willing her not to go, but Jane just looked at him defiantly and stepped forward. She let go of Edward's hand, and reached out to shake Aro's own withered one. Immediately, of course, Edward saw what was happening. The Volturi elder had a gift much like Edward's own. He could read minds as well, but his had the limitation of needing physical contact to do so. But it was also much more powerful in that while Edward could only read current thoughts, Aro could see everything that had ever gone through the person's mind. Now, of course, he was using this skill with Jane.  
"Interesting," he said after Jane had removed her hand from his. "Tell me, Jane, about this skill of yours."  
She looked, wide-eyed- up at Edward.  
"Oh, please do not be frightened," Aro added. "I simply have a gift much like Edward, yet I need physical contact in order to use it. I hope you are not angry with me for doing so."  
She stood completely still for a moment, but then shook her head. "I have a gift of invisibility," she said, answering his question. Edward saw the other members of the Volturi raise their eyebrows in obvious newfound interest. "It has come in handy mostly during hunting, but also works when I just want to remain unseen. And when I am invisible, people can't get to me. Edward, for instance, cannot read my mind."  
"Very interesting," Aro repeated, obviously intrigued. He turned behind him. "Damien, you did not tell us this useful bit of information."  
The vampire in question seemed taken aback. "I did not think that it would be useful! The important thing here is that they broke the rules. They told a human about our existence. That is strictly forbidden."  
Aro nodded. "Yes, that is true," he replied. "But be that as it may, I think that punishing them as we usually do would be such a terrible _waste_."  
Damien stared incredulously at the raven-haired elder. Edward caught a string of his thoughts, most of them centered around Jane, as Damien remembered the past. Images flashed through his mind- he was seemingly unaware of the fact that Edward could 'hear' him, or perhaps he was just unable to block off his thoughts. Either way, Edward could now see things that Jane had not shown or told him: flashes of them together, just as he had seen in Jane's mind, but also bits of them hunting, some of them fighting, and one particularly gruesome image of a blonde human child that Edward immediately tried to shake away. He gaped internally. Why had Jane not told him all of _this_?  
"Damien, you are free to leave," Aro said, bringing Edward back to the present. "But we do thank you for bringing this to our attention, especially now that it has provided us with such an interesting opportunity."  
The blonde vampire that Edward so despised glared at all of them, and tried to protest, but was led out by Demetri, another of the Volturi guard.  
"Now," Aro said pleasantly after Damien had gone. "Where were we?" He smiled at Edward and Jane. "Ah, yes. Seeing as our other friend has gone, I think we should discuss what we are to do about this unfortunate circumstance. Normally, we do not tolerate rule breaking like this at all. And we never make exceptions. But Miss Blackwell, I think that it would be such a pity to lose a girl like you. I think that in this case, a sort of…compromise, of sorts, can be reached."  
Edward immediately saw everything in Aro's head. "No," he said forcefully, grabbing onto Jane's hand. "That is not going to happen."  
"What?" Jane whispered frantically to him. "What isn't going to happen?"  
"They want you to join them," Edward replied quietly to her. Turning back to Aro and the rest of the coven he added, "And that is _not_ an option."  
The immortal's smile faltered the tiniest bit. "Well, I do not see how else we could rectify the problem without destroying both you and the human girl that knows about us," he said smoothly.  
Edward knew that at least part of it was a lie. He could see, through the old vampire's mind, that they did not plan on killing Bella. They would spare her, if only because it would amuse them to see how the situation played out. Each one of the Volturi, knowing that Bella was Edward's 'singer' (the one whose blood affected him more than anyone else's), assumed that Edward himself would kill her, sooner or later. The human girl mattered little to them. But they also knew that Jane cared for her friend, and that they could use this information to get what they wanted: Jane for their own.  
"You will not take her," Edward said to them again.  
"This is not a request, Edward," Aro said firmly. "We want the girl- she would make a valuable asset to our guard. But of course, you do not have a final say in the matter." He turned towards the girl at Edward's side. "Jane, what do you have to say about this?"  
Edward turned to look at her. She seemed stunned into silence, too afraid to say a word from what he could see in her mind. Edward fervently wished- for the first and probably only time in his eternal existence- that she would enact her skill and _run_. But she seemed too frightened to even think about that. Plus, he thought to himself, the Volturi were not stupid. They would know what to do, and Jane would be caught before she reached the door. It would be useless to try and flee.  
Silently, she shook her head the tiniest bit. It was the only thing she could manage to give Aro his answer.  
The elder sighed. "I am sad you feel that way," he replied. "Because it is like I said- this is not a request. We do, of course, have ways of…persuading you to do what we wish." He gave a small nod, and a tiny, angelic-looking girl made her way out of the shadows.  
Edward recognized the pouting lips and apathetic expression of the face behind the cloak that the girl wore. With a sinking feeling, he realized how trapped they truly were. He would know that girl anywhere…and her presence was not something that he enjoyed seeing.  
"My dear," Aro said, putting a hand on the cloaked girl's shoulder as he looked at the two nearest the door, "This is our own Jane. She has been known to have a very _persuasive_ attitude."  
With a small nod, the small vampire turned towards the frightened one at Edward's side. She looked at her pointedly. Edward heard a gasp coming from his Jane, and a strangled cry that was obviously meant to be muted.  
"Stop!" he cried, throwing himself in front of Jane in a protective stance. Aro lifted a hand, and the Jane of the Volturi immediately looked away, her indifferent expression slipping back into place. Immediately, Edward wrapped both arms around the dark-haired girl, glaring at the men sitting in front of them. "Do not do that to her again," he said through clenched teeth. "Ever."  
Aro just put up both hands in a defending gesture. "I simply do what I believe is best for my family," he replied. "Now, I suggest you rethink my offer. After all, my Jane has no problem with using her skill if I tell her to."  
Edward could not hold back the growl that escaped his throat. That Jane's 'skill' was one that he had experienced before, and never wanted to go through again. Using only her mind, the cherub-like little girl could inflict indescribably pain on whomever she wished. Edward cringed at the thought that now his Jane had experienced it. He would have rather gone through the torture a hundred times himself than have that happen to her.  
The sinking feeling once again welled up in his chest. It seemed that there was no way out: either Jane joined the Volturi, or would be killed by them. Neither option worked for Edward. He could not let them take her away from him, especially when there was so much he needed to say to her. He had not gotten the chance to say that he was not mad at her about Damien, like she thought. It was simply that he was mad at Damien- and himself, as well. He had not gotten to tell her that for every day of the seventy years they spent apart, he had not gone one of them without thinking of her- without missing her. And most importantly, he had not gotten to tell her the most significant thing of all: that he was completely, utterly, madly in love with her. And now, it seemed he would never get the chance.


	13. Chapter 13

** Chapter 13**

There was no escape.  
The Volturi had them trapped, and they knew it. After seeing her skill, they wanted Jane for their own, and they would do anything to get her. It was becoming evident very quickly that they would not stop until they had gotten what they desired. She did not see how there was a way out of this.  
She was beginning to slowly resign to her fate; after all, what else could she do but accept? If she didn't, they would destroy her. And considering what she had learned about the Volturi since coming here, they would probably destroy Edward as well. And there was absolutely no way she would let that happen.

At present, Edward stood in front of her in a defending posture. Even though it was useless here, he still tried to protect her. Jane could not help the fleeting bit of happiness that ran through her mind at that thought. For seven years, he had been her protector. And now here he was, doing it again. The thought of it would have made her grin outright, had they been in a different situation.  
"Edward," she whispered. He turned back to look at her. She managed the tiniest of smiles. "Do you remember that one winter in 1931, right after we moved to New York? And there was that one man on the corner of the street?" Immediately, the memory flew to the front of her mind so she knew he could 'see' it.

_The Prohibition era had ended a while ago, and people were taking full advantage of the fact that alcohol was now readily available to them once again. Considering that they no longer needed to hide, the sight of drunken individuals had become a prevalent one- especially in New York City. Adding to this, the Depression that had hit two years earlier had caused many to turn to drinking even more heavily, looking for anything that would rid them of their sorrows.  
On a cold yet pleasantly starry night that December, Jane walked along the dim city streets. Most inhabitants were already asleep, considering it was past three in the morning. But the immortal creature wandered along on the sidewalk, thinking random musings and passing an altogether pleasant night with her thoughts.  
From the adjacent alleyway, a ragged man emerged. The vampire had obviously been aware of his presence already- she had heard his heartbeat from down the street- but had immediately decided to ignore him. That was, until he stepped out onto the sidewalk and approached her.  
Jane could smell the liquor on his breath from a mile away. It seemed to radiate straight from his skin…how much had he been drinking, anyway? From his glazed-over eyes and staggered walking, it was clearly a good amount.  
"Well, hey there," the man slurred, grinning widely at Jane. "It's awfully late for someone so pretty to be wandering around the city, don't you think?"  
She rolled her eyes. Though she had never exactly been what anyone would call beautiful during her human years, she'd gotten comments like this all the time from the drunken patrons of her father's tavern. She knew how to handle inebriated men, even without the obvious advantages that vampirism gave her.  
"Wait a minute," he said as she meant to walk past him without a word. "You didn't think you were going to just leave, now did you?" He put a hand on her shoulder in an effort to keep her back.  
Jane sighed, and was about to say something back to him, but she never got the chance. Out of the shadows came a body moving far too fast for the human to see until it was already in front of him.  
"Do not. Touch her," Edward snarled, closing his hand around the man's throat. The human, wide-eyed and now obviously frightened, did not move.  
"Edward, please," Jane said, putting a hand on his arm to try and pull him back. "I can handle this. Just let the man go." She knew that the drunken man would most likely not even remember this in the morning.  
"I know what's in his head, Jane," Edward replied, his teeth still clenched. "You forget that. And his thoughts were anything but innocent."  
For the second time that night, Jane rolled her eyes. "That may be," she said, "But you are forgetting the fact that he could not exactly hurt me, even if he tried. So please…spare him, and let's just go home."  
Edward still glared at the man, but seemed to realize that she was right, because he finally removed his fingers from their grip on the man's neck. The human shuddered and gasped for breath. He looked between the two vampires, obviously shocked and wondering what on Earth they could be.  
"I suggest you get out of here," Edward growled when the man still did not move. "Before I change my mind."  
Snapping out of his frozen terror, the man stumblingly ran back down the alleyway that he had come from and eventually out of Edward and Jane's sight.  
Jane turned towards Edward, frowning. "What on Earth was that?" she asked, unable to think of anything else to say.  
He shrugged. "The guy was trying to hurt you," he replied. "What was I supposed to do, just sit at home and let him?"  
She raised an eyebrow. "Edward," she said slowly, "Tell me this: what in the world could that man have done to hurt me? That's impossible."  
He looked sheepish. "I know…but you are just so _small_, Jane. It is easy to forget that you're physically indestructible. I just seem to have this compulsive urge to protect you, no matter if you need it or not."  
Jane's lip began to turn upwards in a smile. "Well, that is very sweet," she responded. "No matter how unnecessary it is. Just try not to do something stupid like that again, hm?"  
Edward smiled back at her. "I promise," he said back. "Now, you mentioned something about going home?"  
She laughed. "Yes, and I'm thinking it is definitely time for us to do so."  
He chuckled in reply and threw an arm around her shoulders. Together, the two of them walked through the city and back to their home._

Edward smiled back at her, but looked as though he should be blushing at the same time. "That was a long time ago," he whispered back. "And you can't lie- that man _did_ want to hurt you."  
She laughed silently. "Once again, that doesn't matter because he couldn't have hurt me. But that's not the point. The point is that you were protecting me, even though you didn't need to. And even seventy years later, I still think that that was very sweet."  
His smile widened. "Of course I wanted to protect you," he said softly. "I have always wanted to protect you, no matter what." He took one of her hands in both of his, and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else. But before he could, they were interrupted and brought back to the attention of the others there.  
"While that is touching," Aro said from the opposite side of the room, "It does not solve the issue that we seem to have at hand. Now, Jane- you are quite positive that you do not want to join us?"  
"Quite positive," Jane replied firmly.  
The raven-haired vampire slowly shook his head. "That is a shame," he said in his soft voice. He turned towards Edward. "We seem to be at an impasse. But as I am sure you are aware, Edward, there is really no other alternative than what I have already said to you." He turned back towards Jane, a small frown marring his strangely handsome appearance. "Such a tragedy…I would have very much liked to get to know you better, young Jane. From what I have seen, you seem like such a fascinating creature. But of course, I must do what I must."  
Jane tried to hide her fear at Aro's words. From beside her, she could hear Edward's low growling, and squeezed his hand to keep him from lashing out. When she looked at him, she could see the determined expression on his face. She knew that face- he was thinking something.  
"Edward, _no_," she hissed. "Whatever you are thinking, stop immediately."  
He looked down at her. "But I think I may have an idea," he replied. His golden eyes bored into hers with a strange intensity. "The Volturi have wanted me for years. If I take them up on that offer…perhaps they will spare you."  
Jane would have paled even more, had that not been a physical impossibility. "No you will not!" she said back, appalled. "I am absolutely not going to let you sacrifice yourself for my sake."  
He looked at her deeply. "Better me than you, Jane. At least if they take me, then I know exactly what will come of it. I could handle that. But you…" he shuddered. "I know for a fact that I could not handle you being kept here. And if they take me, then I know you are safe. You will _not_ die on my account."  
She almost rolled her eyes. "It isn't your fault!" she whispered, though she wanted to scream. "How many times must I tell you? The Volturi want me- either that, or they kill me." Edward flinched at her words, but she kept going. "And they will probably come after you too. And I would rather I die, than both of us."  
His expression immediately flipped from nervous to infuriated. "_That is not happening!_" he responded through tightly clenched teeth. "I do not know how much more plainly I could say it, but I absolutely will not let anything happen to you. Jane, I l-" but he never got to finish his sentence, because the thick wooden door at the opposite side of the room flew open and interrupted him.  
"Do not hurt them," came a familiar voice from the doorway.  
Every single occupant of the room turned towards it. But Aro was, of course, the first one to speak.  
"Carlisle, my old friend!" the old vampire said amiably. "How good to see you again. "I had just told Edward to remind you that you are welcome here any time. Oh, it is good to see you!"  
Carlisle did not smile in return. "Do not hurt my children," he said in return.  
Aro adopted a taken-aback expression. "Why, I would not dream of hurting any in your coven, of course!"  
The blonde vampire looked at him sternly. "My daughter Alice has the gift of foresight," he replied. "She saw everything that was going on here today, and informed me. I place great trust in her- I know that she would not lie about a vision."  
As if on cue, the little pixie-like vampire appeared in the doorway beside Carlisle, and immediately flew over to where Edward and Jane stood.  
"Jane!" she cried. "Edward! Oh, thank goodness you're both okay! I'm sorry I didn't see anything sooner, and warn you before you left…" her beautiful features fell, her face crumpling in guilt.  
"Don't worry about it," Jane replied firmly. "You can't blame yourself for not getting a vision soon enough- that's just stupid." She looked her best friend directly in the eye, willing Alice to believe her.  
Alice tried to put on a brave face, but still she threw her thin arms around Jane's neck, murmuring once again how glad she was that they were safe.  
Meanwhile, Jane looked back over at the other side of the room. The Volturi- both coven and guard- all stood as if prepared to fight. But Carlisle's face had softened back to its usual pleasant demeanor rather than the stiff frown he had worn only moments before.  
"Aro, my dear friend," he said, "Perhaps there is some way we can discuss this matter. After all, it would be so unfortunate to lose such a camaraderie as we have had over these many years for such a frankly small incident. Please- let us work this out. All of us," he added, looking at the other two men in the chairs that had been sitting silently all this time.  
The Volturi elder speculated for a moment, then nodded once with a small smile on his face. "Come, my brothers," he said to the vampires at his either side. "We shall go into the other room and talk."  
Carlisle glanced quickly back at Jane, Edward, and Alice, a reassuring smile on his face, and followed the men through another thick wooden door along the brick wall and into one of the many rooms.  
Jane sat down on an old wooden bench, one of the few that lined the walls in the large room. She elected to stare at her feet, trying to focus on that instead of everything else going on. Most of the guard remained with them, standing still as statues opposite from them. The other Jane had left, along with a young-looking boy that Edward had informed Jane was the other vampire's twin brother, Alec. But Felix, along with other guard members that Jane of course did not recognize, stayed there, obviously making sure that the three Cullens did not try to escape.  
Mercifully, Damien had made his exit just before Carlisle and Alice had come. Jane did not know where he went, but frankly did not care. The only thing with which she was concerned was the fact that he was gone. Seeing him had drudged up painful and unnecessary memories, and Jane was glad for the fact that now he'd left, she could forget them once again.  
A small movement out of the corner of her eye caught Jane's attention, and she looked up to find that Edward had sat down beside her. She smiled slightly, and leaned against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, and shifted positions so that she would be more comfortable.  
"Carlisle will fix everything," he whispered into her hair. "Trust me- he has known the Volturi for hundreds of years. They will work something out."  
His voice carried a hint of disbelief in his own words, but Jane ignored that. She had faith in Carlisle. He would not let anything happen to them.  
"I know," she replied quietly.  
Edward lifted Jane's head from his shoulder and turned so that he faced her. His soft amber eyes bored into her own, and she could not help but smile as she looked into them. After all, those had been the first eyes she'd seen after waking up to her second life. Her first thought, upon seeing him, had been that she felt that she might melt within his gaze. And now, so many years later, she felt in danger of precisely the same thing.  
"You know that I would not let any harm come to you," he said softly. "If it did…" he shuddered a bit. "Well, I prefer not to think of it. But Jane, even after seventy years apart from you, I still feel like it is my duty to ensure that you are protected." He let out a small chuckle. "Heck, even during those years we spent apart, I still made sure that you were safe. Did you know that I had Alice keep an eye on you through her visions? That's why she knew you right away, when you met."  
Jane was taken aback. "You thought about me?"  
He looked at her as though she must be kidding. "Of course I did! Not a day went by when I didn't wonder where you were, or what you were doing. It killed me, not getting to see you. Of course, Alice's visions helped, but of course they did not work when you were invisible- something she had attributed at the time to not paying close enough attention, or to your decisions changing." He smiled softly at her, taking her hand.  
"I wouldn't let myself think about you," she said quietly, almost more to herself than to him. "Sometimes I would pass by someone or something that reminded me of Carlisle or Esme, but I never let anything remind me of you…it hurt me too much. Just being away from you hurt me too much, but I tried to push it away and pretend like it didn't. For a while I thought it was working, but the moment I saw you again in Forks, everything came rushing back. I knew that leaving you once was hard enough…and that leaving again would just about break me."  
Edward frowned. "You cannot leave me again," he replied firmly. "I couldn't handle losing you again…because I love you."  
Jane felt a rush of warmth shoot through her cold, marble-like body. She felt like bursting into tears, though of course that could not happen. She tried to choke it back, considering the sensation of crying when one could not produce tears was rather unpleasant. "I love you too, Edward," she replied, managing a tiny smile.  
He smiled in reply, though it was pained. "Jane?" he asked worriedly. "Why are you crying?"  
She shook her head. "I'm not crying- especially considering we can't. But I just think it's funny that it took so long to finally tell you I love you, and now it's taking the fact that I'm probably going to die to actually say it."  
Edward growled under his breath. "You are _not_ going to die!" he replied. "How many times do I have to tell you that it is my job to protect you? Nothing bad is going to happen to you- I promise." As if to emphasize his point, he wrapped his arms around her and held her against his chest.  
Jane decided not to ruin the moment by speaking anymore, and instead buried her face in his chest and wrapped her own arms around his waist. She contented herself with just breathing in his scent, and letting him hold her. From off to the side, she vaguely heard Alice practically giggling with joy. _Crap_. She had completely forgotten that the other girl was even there. But almost immediately, Jane decided that she would continue to pretend like she wasn't. Instead, she sat in silence in Edward's arms, all of them awaiting whatever happened.  
It seemed like hours they sat there, waiting for Carlisle and the Volturi coven to come out of that room. Finally, after a frightening amount of time had passed (the entire day had gone by, Jane realized, and it had grown dark outside once again), a group of figures emerged. Each one of them was grinning, and Aro had a hand clapped on Carlisle's shoulder.  
"It was so good to see you, my friend!" he said warmly. "Please, don't wait this long to visit us again next time."  
"I assure you, I won't," Carlisle replied. "I'm glad we could catch up. I agree, it really was too long of a time."  
Aro nodded, then turned towards the younger vampires. "My dear young Cullens, you are free to leave whenever you wish," he said with a smile. "But of course, the invitation extends to you all as well- do join your father the next time he visits us, yes?"  
Completely astounded, Jane found that she could do nothing but nod. Looking to the side, she could see that Edward and Alice had done the same thing. They all said a quick goodbye to the Volturi, then made their way through the labyrinth of hallways, stepped out the front door, and left the Volturi for good.

Jane sighed in relief as she looked out the window at the black night sky. Only a few hours before (well, seven, but it felt like mere moments), she had been trapped in Italy and positive that she would not survive the day. Now, as she stared out over the invisible Atlantic ocean that she knew was beneath them, she could finally relax. It was over.  
Edward gently squeezed her hand. "What are you thinking about?" he asked, whispering in her ear so as to not wake the other passengers on the plane.  
She turned in her seat and looked at him, smiling. "How happy I am that it's over," she replied. "And that we're going home."  
He smiled back. "I'm happy for that too," he replied, then looked at her seriously. "I love you, Jane."  
Her smile only widened. "I love you too."  
She could not help but grin at the thought that now their lives were not in danger, they could say that to each other whenever they wanted to. And Jane planned on taking advantage of that fact every moment she could.


	14. Chapter 14

** Chapter 14**

Weeks passed, and the dreariness of the rain and clouds carried on for the rest of April. The Cullens were all grateful for that fact, considering they could stay at home and not have to worry about leaving on the off chance of having a sunny day. Things had finally settled down.  
Even so, one thing weighed on two of the Cullen children's minds: Carlisle still would not tell them what he said to the Volturi in order to free them. Every time either Edward or Jane so much as asked, he would say the same thing:  
"We had a good talk, and settled things that we should have settled long ago. There is really nothing more to it than that."  
Edward- and, as he knew from seeing it in her mind, Jane too- was frustrated beyond belief by this answer. But he never pried into his father's thoughts, so he knew that he would never get the true answer. He often sighed, and resigned to this fact. He would just have to be happy with just the fact that Jane was safe.  
And of course, he _was_ happy about that. He had felt faintly nauseous throughout the entire trip to Italy, sick with worry about her. When they were actually in Volterra, he could scarcely stand knowing the others' thoughts- he'd wanted to rip them all apart, not caring if they killed him first as long as Jane was okay. The worst of it was that he'd caught glimpses of what was in that horrible Damien's head…but he vowed never to think about _that_ again.  
"What are you so lost in thoughts about?" came a familiar voice.  
Edward smiled. Honestly, sometimes he thought that she could read _his_ mind, rather than the other way around. "Nothing of importance," he replied, and wrapped an arm around Jane's waist to pull her onto his lap. It was at that moment that Alice walked by, giggling in her maddening way. But Edward caught a string of her thoughts, and grinned at what he'd 'seen.'  
"What?" Jane asked, one eyebrow raised. "What did Alice see?"  
He shook his head. "Nothing- or rather, nothing you won't find out soon," he replied cryptically.  
She groaned. "Well that's hardly fair! I hate secrets. Somebody had better tell me what's going on before I get seriously annoyed."  
Edward just chuckled. He found her anger irresistibly adorable. "Like I said- you'll find out," he replied. Then he looked out the window of the living room where they sat, and smiled. "What do you say we take a walk tonight?" he suggested. "It's going to be a clear evening, for once. It should be pleasant."  
She scowled at him. "You suddenly have this overwhelming urge to go on a walk? What does that have to do with _anything_?" But she sighed, seemingly resigned to just go along with whatever he suggested. "Fine. But don't think that I'm not going to make you tell me what you and Alice are keeping from me. I don't forget things easily." She was pointing one of her fingers at him, trying to seem intimidating.  
"Deal," he replied with a laugh.  
They watched the sunset together for a bit, the orange rays bursting every so often through the thinning clouds. Alice had seen that it was going to be a cloudless night- a perfect evening to spend lazily with Jane.  
As the moon began to rise overhead, Edward figured they could go out- the usual rain had stopped hours ago, and it was bound to be a mild evening. Sometimes he really loved Alice, for being able to see things like that. He knew where he wanted to go, and he and Jane ran the short distance there.  
_Wow_, she said internally when they finally stopped, knowing that he could 'hear' her. _This is beautiful_.  
Edward smiled. They'd ended up in the meadow that he had discovered when they had just moved to Forks. It was huge, and overrun with wildflowers. A creek babbled nearby, sending a pleasantly soothing sound throughout the entire clearing. It was one of his favorite spots in the world.  
He pulled her to the middle of the open space, holding tightly onto her hand, marveling for perhaps the hundredth time just that week how perfectly her fingers fit through his. She squeezed his hand lightly; he could barely feel the pressure of it, and he pressed gently back. It had always been like this between them- no need for words, when they did not want to talk. There was only the comfortable silence that had fallen, joined every so often with the gentle chirping of the crickets. He figured this was a good place to stop for a while.  
In the last remaining rays of sun shining through the dusky twilight, Jane's skin gave off the faintest hint of sparkling. Her amber eyes glowed bright even in the dimness of early evening, seemingly illuminated with a light all their own. It never ceased to amaze Edward, how beautiful she really was. He wanted to speak, to tell her how much he loved her and could not believe how close he'd come to losing her without letting her know how he felt. But this was something that words could not convey, so he decided on something that would: he kissed her.  
Jane let out the tiniest hint of a squeak in surprise, making him smile against her lips. That, however, was soon all but forgotten. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him towards her. Edward held her tightly by her waist, needing her as close to him as physically possible. She molded into his arms like she was made to fit there, soft and small and somehow even warm.  
He leaned down to whisper in her ear, "I love you, Jane Blackwell. I have always loved you, and I will always love you." He vowed to himself that he would tell her that every day for the rest of eternity.  
The smile that lit up Jane's face made Edward's still heart swell in his chest. "And I love you, Edward Cullen," she replied. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him briefly, but then pulled away with a pained expression on her face. "I wish I'd never left," she said softly. "We could have been together this whole time, and everything with Damien would never have happened. I was so stupid…"  
Edward was about to protest when she put a finger to his lips, effectively silencing him. A familiar scene ran through her mind, but this time he saw it through Jane's point of view rather than his own.

_It was the fall of 1933, and Rosalie Hale had been in their family for a few months now. She had proven to be a handful to live with, considering she was unpleasant about absolutely everything. She was, more or less, a pain in the neck. How on Earth were they supposed to handle this girl forever? Honestly, Carlisle needed to control his compulsion to 'save' people sometimes.  
Meanwhile, he was under the assumption that Edward and Rosalie would come together as he and Esme had, and that Jane would find someone of her own one day. He had mentioned it a few times over those months, if only in passing. She found herself wanting to cry at the idea of it, despite the physical impossibility of that.  
Her own feelings for Edward had been…confusing, as of late. The two had been best friends for the past seven years, but Jane found herself inexplicably wanting more. He, however, only saw her as a friend- almost as a sister. And Rosalie (personality non-withstanding), with her blonde hair and statuesque physique…she was perfection incarnate. How could Jane possibly compete with that?  
She assumed Carlisle's theory of Edward and Rosalie's future would come true- after all, he was usually write about just about everything. So she kept her feelings to herself, blocking Edward from her mind as best she could by retreating into her invisibility. Sometimes a few things would slip, but overall she kept him out. It was best this way- he never had to know about her stupid, adolescent feelings.  
Eventually, however, it became too much. Jane couldn't take it anymore. She figured her strange, depressed attitude was a hindrance on the rest of the family. They didn't need to be miserable because of her. So she made a decision, and one night called a family meeting.  
Assuming it was for the best, she looked them all in the eye and spoke just two words. "I'm leaving."_

The memory left Jane's mind, and Edward stared at her, stunned into silence for a few moments before finally regaining the ability to speak.  
"_That's_ why you left?" he asked, incredulous.  
She just nodded.  
He shook his head. "Jane, I felt nothing for Rosalie. She's become like a sister to me over the years, but at first I could hardly even stand to be in the same room as her. I only ever loved you."  
"I know that now," Jane said sheepishly. "But back then…I didn't even realize that I was in love with you, and I figured that you _had_ to love Rosalie. I mean, you've seen her: she's perfect. And compared to me-"  
"There is no comparison," Edward interjected. "There never has been. Rosalie might seem beautiful to some, but for me it has _always_ been you. You have intrigued me since the moment I first saw you, in your house in Chicago, back in 1926. When my father and I got there, and I saw you lying there in the bedroom, all I could think was, 'This girl cannot die.' You know that this life isn't one that I would have chosen for anyone, Jane. But I am just selfish enough to have wanted it for you. I couldn't let you go; you fascinated me too much."  
She smiled up at him, her gold eyes sparkling as they met his. "Edward, you are not selfish in the least bit. You have no idea how grateful I am that you did that for me. If I had died when I was supposed to, I would never have met you. And I may have been stupid enough to waste seventy years apart from you, but I will never make that mistake again. And now we have the rest of eternity to spend together. If it was a selfish decision on your part to want me changed, then consider me selfish as well, because I am beyond happy to have the ability to live forever- as long as I get to do so with you."  
"Of course," Edward replied. "Forever." He sealed his promise with a firm kiss to her lips.  
They watched as the moon continued to rise in the sky, a full moon that bathed his- now _their_- meadow in silvery light. Eventually, they figured it was time to head back home. But they walked slowly- almost at human pace- back to the house, enjoying their time together now that they could do so freely, without worry of the Volturi or anything of that sort. They could just focus on each other.

If Edward had always hated the fact that he could read minds, it had now almost certainly doubled. Over the past couple of weeks, the thoughts running through his family's minds were driving him mental. As he sat on the couch in the living room of their house, Jane in his lap, he grew increasingly annoyed with all of the thoughts of the people around them.  
_'Dude, nice going!'_ Emmett was thinking directly to him, not even bothering to disguise his thoughts. _'I think you broke the wall last night- me and Rosie might have some competition!'  
_Edward growled in his brother's direction, but Emmett just laughed and went back to watching TV. From then on, Edward vowed to try and block Emmett's thoughts from his mind.  
Rosalie, meanwhile, was constantly thinking the same strain of thoughts when it came to him and Jane: "get a room, you're grossing me out." Edward more or less ignored her. He'd had to deal with her and Emmett for years- she could deal with him and Jane for a while. Serves her right.  
Jasper happily accepted the situation. He was always happiest when other people were happy, considering how everyone's emotions affected him. The fact that things in the family were considerably more lighthearted than they had been in the past lifted his spirits immensely. He silently thanked Edward every chance he got for relieving him of unwanted stress.  
And Alice just couldn't stop bouncing around. _'Finally!'_ she was thinking happily. _'I've only waited just about forever, jeez. I wonder if they'll let me plan their wedding. Ooh, maybe a spring wedding…'_  
"Alice," Edward warned, glaring at her.  
"Sorry," she replied, not looking sorry at all.  
Jane looked between them, but decided to ignore whatever it was they'd silently communicated. Edward was thankful- he didn't exactly want to explain_ that_ to Jane, not having really thought through everything Alice was thinking about just yet. All in time, of course, just…not yet. For now, she could deal with her visions of their continued happiness in the future- which he saw through the medium of her mind, of course. And so far, the future was looking pretty good.

"You look thirsty," Jane commented one afternoon as they sat together in his- what had become their- room.  
He looked at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were black, and the circles underneath were a darker shade of purple than usual. She was right- he _did_ look thirsty. Counting in his head, Edward realized that it had been weeks since he had last fed- far too long, obviously.  
"You're right," he replied. "I am thirsty, actually. I should probably go hunting today. Do you need to come?"  
She shook her head. "Alice and I just went- I'm okay." Her eyes were still their usual shade of amber, and she looked much more energetic than he felt.  
"Alright," he replied. "I'll get Jasper and Emmett." With a quick kiss to her forehead, he rounded up his brothers and told them about his proposed hunting trip. They eagerly agreed, and left the girls to their own devices. The last thing Edward heard before they left the house was Alice exclaiming that they should go shopping in Port Angeles now that they had a "girl's day", and Jane groaning in refusal. He chuckled quietly, wondering how that would play out.  
As Edward ran through the woods, Jasper and Emmett somewhere nearby, he lost himself in the hunt like he always did. He ran swiftly, enjoying the thrill of it, chasing a mountain lion and tackling it to the ground. It was, of course, no match for him; he took it down within seconds.  
Once satiated, he planned to hunt a deer before heading back, to make sure that he would not have to hunt for awhile. But his plans were abruptly interrupted when he caught a string of Jane's thoughts. He tried not to listen to her mind whenever possible…but this time, they could not be ignored. Images flooded Edward's head, frightening him immediately.  
_'Stop!'_ she cried, her eyes wide and frightened. Around her there were only shadows; it was impossible to see who she was talking to. She tried to use her skill and run, but for some reason she couldn't.  
_I can't even turn invisible_, she was thinking to herself. _There isn't any escape._ The tenor of her internal voice scared Edward more than anything. She sounded almost…hopeless. Almost immediately, like she knew what he was thinking, she 'spoke' directly to him in that same desolate tone. His stomach dropped to hear the utter despondency of it.  
_Edward, I love you_.  
And then his mind abruptly went blank.  
"Jasper! Emmett!" he called out desperately.  
They appeared in front of him seconds later.  
"What's wrong?" Jasper asked, knowing his anxiety from feeling it himself.  
"It's Jane," he said. "Something is horribly, horribly wrong. I don't know what happened, but she's in trouble. And now I can't hear what she's thinking. Actually…I can't hear _anything_. It's like my ability just disappeared." When his brothers had shown up before him, he realized that he couldn't hear their thoughts either. Something strange was going on, and Edward had no idea what it was.  
"Let's go," Emmett suggested. The other two vampires nodded in silent agreement, and they all ran back to the house.  
The rest of the family had gathered in the dining room, and were waiting for them when they returned. Edward had been hoping against hope that Jane was somehow there too, and that everything was okay. But of course, that hadn't happened. With yet another sinking feeling, Edward looked at her usual spot at the large (and rather unnecessary) table to find it empty.  
"What happened?" he demanded, knowing that they didn't have any more answers than he did, but too angry and scared to care.  
Alice was the one to answer him. "Someone took her," she replied. "I don't know who it is…I can't see. They obviously know what they're doing, though. I keep getting flashes of some dark room. It's strange…there's beams, and light coming in from weird places, and a lot of metal and dirty windows. It's hard to see. I just get these little clips, and then they're gone. I can't figure it out."  
"Here," Jasper said, handing her a piece of paper and a pen. Edward hadn't even seen him leave to get them. "It might help if you draw it out."  
"Thanks, Jas," she replied gratefully. Edward had to figure that after so much time, Jasper knew exactly how to handle things like this. Immediately, she began to sketch out some kind of room on the piece of paper. It was large and unfamiliar, with what looked like metal beams across the ceiling and huge windows across the wall. And the fact that Edward couldn't even see it in her mind didn't help.  
"I don't know this place," he said helplessly, more confused than ever. Of course, the fact that she was seeing other things just made it worse. Alice told them all everything she saw- including flickers of Jane, backed up against one of the dirty metal walls. She looked determined, but like she knew that she was fighting a losing battle. But even so, she was protecting something- or rather, someone- with every bit of strength she had.  
It took a few seconds for Edward to figure out who was behind her, who Jane was trying so furiously to protect. A flash of frightened brown eyes finally gave it away for them: Bella Swan. But that raised more questions than it answered. What was Jane protecting Bella from? Why did she need to protect her? What in the world was going on- why couldn't he _see_ anything?  
"I think I know where that is," Emmett chimed in excitedly. The idea of a chase always got Emmett keyed up.  
"Where?" Edward demanded, unable to keep himself calm.  
"It looks like that old abandoned factory outside of town," his brother replied. "The one we always pass when we go hunting that way? It's got the same windows."  
"I think he's right," Alice replied.  
"Well, let's go then!" Edward shouted. Without waiting for the rest of his family, he ran out to the garage and jumped into his silver Volvo. He could not help but notice Jane's Volkswagen parked next to his car, and swallowed thickly. He would _not_ think about how grave the situation might be. He would save her. There was no other option than to save her. They had already been through so much, and Edward was not about to lose her now.  
The second the garage door was up, his foot was on the gas pedal and pressing it all the way to the floor. More determined than ever, Edward maneuvered down the driveway and into the blackness of the night.


	15. Chapter 15

** Chapter 15**

When Edward had rounded up Jasper and Emmett and decided to go hunting, Alice took it upon herself to organize an impromptu shopping trip. She decided that it was the perfect day to head to Port Angeles and spend the entire afternoon lost inside a department store, bounding around in her maddening way and buying more unnecessary things. And knowing Alice, she would insist on Jane getting new clothes too. And Jane was _not_ in the mood for that.  
The minute the boys left, Alice flew into the bedroom that Jane and Edward now shared, ever since coming back from Italy. "Jane!" she cried dramatically. "Jane, don't you love me at all?"  
"Of course I do, Alice," she replied, confused. "You're like a sister to me, you know that. What's wrong?"  
The little pixie-like vampire frowned. "You aren't coming shopping with me," she said morosely.  
Jane chuckled softly. "Oh Alice, is that why you're mad? Don't be upset. Rosalie will go with you, and I guarantee she'll be a lot more into it than I would be. Honestly, you'll have more fun without me."  
Her spiky-haired sister sighed. "I suppose," she grumbled. "And you're obviously going to be stubborn and not change your mind, I can see that. But this means you owe me!"  
"Alright, deal." _Thank goodness_, she added to herself as Alice left the room. She had flitted out in a considerably better mood, which meant that she must have seen whatever it was that Jane 'owed' her. Lord only knew what that was…but at least it got her out of shopping.  
The sound of a car pulling out of the garage and down the driveway meant that Jane was finally on her own for the afternoon. She loved her family- she really did- but sometimes it got slightly overwhelming being with seven other people all the time. She was still getting used to it after so much time alone.  
Grabbing a book from the shelf against the wall, Jane decided to spend the afternoon getting lost in a story. She settled into the large black couch, sitting up against the cushions with her knees bent and the book propped up against them. She would have been just about as comfortable even if she were standing, but had found that she enjoyed mimicking simple human motions like that. It was unnecessary, to be sure, but preferable to just standing around all day.  
Within minutes of cracking open her book, however, Jane realized that she couldn't even get into it. It was stupid…but she missed Edward. He had only been gone for an hour or so, and he would be back by nighttime- a span of a few hours, which was like mere minutes to a vampire- but she could not shake the dull ache that pulsed through her whenever he wasn't near.  
She told herself that she was being stupid, and that she should just do something to occupy her mind. After all, he would be back before she knew if it she didn't insist on acting like a whiny, codependent child. Annoyed at herself, she opened her book again and tried to focus on reading.  
"What's the matter, miss your little boyfriend?" a hauntingly familiar voice asked. It came from the corner of the room.  
Jane whipped her head around to have her worst fears realized. It was that voice- low and gravelly and just as chilling as she remembered. It sent an uneasy feeling up her spine.  
"Damien," she croaked, on her feet in less than a second. "What…what the hell are you doing here?"  
He neared her slowly, his every step calculated into a careful dance. She knew these movements; it was the same way he moved when he stalked his prey. The realization of it made the venom in her throat rise like bile.  
"I came to see you, little Janie," he replied as he continued to step towards her. "After all, we didn't exactly get to do much reminiscing while we were in Italy. And we have _so much_ to catch up on." He reached out and drew his index finger down the line of her cheek, making her shudder in disgust. His crimson eyes glinted in the pale light as he smirked at her. "I've missed you, Janie," he said softly. "You took off so suddenly, it took me ages to find you."  
"You-you've been searching for me?" she stuttered, hating the way her voice broke and gave away her nervousness. "For fifty years?"  
He snorted. "Well, not the whole time. You're not _that_ interesting, you know. But I've more or less been keeping track of you, yes."  
Jane knew him better than to take his words at face value, though. She had spent too much time with him not to be able to call his bluff. He _had_ been looking for her all that time.  
"Why?" she asked, incredulous. "What do you want?"  
"You," Damien replied. His hand trailed down from her cheek to the base of her neck, his fingers ghosting over her collarbone.  
"Well I don't want you," she responded, shoving his hand away.  
He did not seem deterred. His grin turned lurid. "But Jane, we used to have so much _fun_ together. Remember?"  
She didn't want to remember. She wanted to push every horrible memory of him away forever and never look back. His voice made her shiver and her stomach take an uneasy turn. His touch was nothing like Edward's, which made her feel warm despite how impossible that was. _Edward_. She growled under her breath, her anger towards Damien doubled at the thought of her love. The blonde vampire currently in her room was _nothing_ compared to him.  
"I don't. Want you," she snarled, glaring at Damien. "I love Edward."  
His grin disappeared at the mention of Edward's name. "Ah yes. Your little _boyfriend_," he spat back. "The obnoxious mind-reading one. I remember him from Italy. Where is he, anyway?"  
"Hunting. Nearby," she added. "And he will kill you when he finds out that you've been here."  
"But he's not here now," Damien replied. "So let's test that little theory of yours, shall we? This should be fun." He was grinning once again.  
Jane attempted to duck under him and run, but he wasn't stupid. He figured out what she was trying to do, and easily prevented her. With him at just over six feet tall, she was no match for him physically. He grabbed her easily and jumped out the window through which he'd entered, landing on his on the ground even with a struggling Jane in his grasp. In a flash, Damien was running through the forest. Jane closed her eyes and tried to make herself invisible, but it was no use. She was afraid of that, knowing her skill would be useless by this point. Trying to concentrate, she did the only thing she could figure to do.  
_'Edward, I love you,'_ Jane said in her mind.  
She just hoped that he could still hear her.

They ended up at the abandoned factory at the edge of town. Jane had passed it hundreds of times before, though she'd never been inside. After all, what reason would there be for going in here? It hadn't been used in ages; the walls were crumbling in places, the enormous windows that took up the entire western wall were dirty, and there were scraps of rusted metal everywhere. There was no reason for anyone to ever want to come in here. It was disgusting.  
She wanted to run, but knew it would be useless to do so. Damien would catch her before she could get anywhere near the door, and he could easily overpower her with his strength. And her skill wouldn't work, that much she knew. She tried again, but it was useless as she figured. Even after fifty years, she couldn't forget that that would happen.  
Frustrated and scared, she uselessly tried to think of a plan while Damien stalked around their surroundings, looking somehow even more menacing in the dim, dusty light. For a split second, she considered kicking him between the legs and trying to run, hoping against hope that Edward might hear her even though she figured his ability would be gone by now too. But the sound of the huge metal door opening broke Jane from her futile planning.  
"Ah, now my fun can truly begin," Damien said softly, the grin on his face widening and scaring Jane even more.  
She looked towards the door and blinked at what she saw, not quite sure she believed it. "_Bella_?" What on Earth was the human girl doing here? "Bella, get out of here!" she cried, hoping her friend would listen to her and just _leave_.  
"Now Janie, don't be unkind," Damien scolded. "After all, she was invited." He walked over to the shaking human, his speed obviously scaring her even more considering the way her brown eyes widened.  
Jane ran over to her friend, beyond even trying to keep up the human façade. "Bella, what are you doing here?" she asked.  
"He…he was going to hurt you," she replied shakily. "And it's my fault- I know why you disappeared for a couple days last month, he told me. You were in danger because I know…about you."  
It suddenly came together. "You guilted her into it?" Jane hissed at Damien. "Why? What was the point of that? You could have just taken me!"  
"Now, what fun would that be?" he replied. "I wanted to see what all the fuss with this little human is. After all, you risked exposure for her friendship- she obviously has to be special. Though clearly you're not as good of a friend as you claim to be, Janie dear. I had to fill Bella in on a couple of things you left out- like how telling her about our existence is expressly forbidden, and how you almost got into terrible trouble for it. She wasn't too happy about being left out of the loop with that one. So naturally, she wanted to be included in this little event. And if you're going to be a good friend, shouldn't you share everything?"  
Jane glared at him. He knew that Bella would blame herself for what had happened in Italy, and come here to try and help her. The human girl was one of the most selfless people that Jane had met in nearly a hundred years; it was one of the things that was so intriguing about her. But she was selfless to a fault, and it had come to that point now.  
"Bella, do not listen to anything he says," Jane instructed her friend. "What happened with me and Edward was _not_ your fault. Now as your friend, I have to tell you to trust me. Do everything I tell you, okay? Starting with staying there, and _not moving an inch_." The intensity in her eyes must have shocked Bella, because she just nodded and stood as still as she could.  
Jane sighed internally. She just hoped Bella would stay there and not try to do anything stupid. Maybe if she did, Jane could effectively protect her from Damien. She would be crushed if Bella died, effectively sacrificing herself for the vampires. It was bad enough knowing that Damien had her trapped, but Bella too…things had taken a sickening turn for the worse.  
"Oh, stop ruining all my fun, Janie," Damien tutted.  
"Just let her go," Jane said firmly, hoping her voice sounded stronger than she actually felt. "Do whatever you want with me, but let Bella go." She couldn't help but think about the girl's father, the police chief. Jane had met him once before, earlier that year. He was such a nice man, and obviously loved Bella greatly. He would be so hurt if she was gone…Jane shook those thoughts from her mind. She would protect her friend. Damien would _not_ get to her.  
"And ruin the game I worked so hard to set up?" he replied. "But that would just be so _boring_."  
Jane sighed. Damien exhibited an extreme example of vampire nature: obsession. For many of their kind, once they got their mind on something it was impossible to break them of their fixation. She had seen it dozens of times in the seven years she was with him. Once he found a 'game', he would forget about it until he'd seen it through. It was just like she remembered. For a split second, a flash of that little girl from the night she left shot through her mind. Her wide blue eyes, filled with tears of fright, pierced Jane's thoughts. It made her chest ache; the image was just as horrible as it had been all those years ago. But that would not happen today. Jane would not let that happen again.  
"Damien, you don't really want her," she said, trying to distract him from the 'game' he had made of Bella.  
"You're right," he replied. "What I want is _you_, my little Janie."  
She growled as he approached her. Well…at least he'd gotten away from the human. There was one positive of this whole thing. One of his hands found its way around her waist, exerting almost no pressure but still managing to freeze Jane in place. Her mind was a blur of fear and disgust.  
"Edward will never let you get away with this, you know," she told him.  
"True," he replied calmly. "But your little protector isn't here, is he? And I'm fairly certain he has no idea where we are. It's a shame he has to miss this, though. I wish I had a camera to cherish this _lovely_ reunion." He brushed a lock of hair from Jane's forehead. "Although you know, Janie, I'm not sure I like this new look of yours. Your eyes were so much more…_alluring_, when they were red like they should be. Why deny yourself the one thing it is in our nature to have?"  
"Because I am not a monster," she spat, her emphasis on the last word as she glared into his own hideously red eyes. "And I am never going back to living like that. And I am definitely never going back to _you_. You disgust me."  
His eyes darkened instantaneously, turning black in the dim light filtering through the dusty windows. Immediately, his expression turned livid. Jane tried to keep from cowering, still hoping to keep his attention off of Bella.  
"You always were a little bitch," he grumbled. His grip on her waist tightened. Had she been human, there would definitely have been bruises on her skin- maybe even a broken bone. In a flash, she was up against one of the dirty walls. His face was inches from hers. Jane could see his teeth as he growled; they looked just as she remembered- he'd always seemed to have sharp teeth, even for a vampire.  
"Let me go, Damien," she growled, struggling in his grasp.  
Of course he did not listen. She hadn't really expected him to. He just moved his hands to hold her wrists in an iron grasp. He chuckled watching her squirm and thrash against him; his laugh was low and cold, turning the pit of her stomach to ice. And she hadn't thought it was possible to get any colder. Jane closed her eyes, trying to block out the image of him. Maybe if she didn't see anything…  
But the next thing that happened wasn't what she'd been expecting at all. She felt her wrists suddenly free, and a split second later she heard a crash. Opening her eyes, she saw Damien jumping up from where he'd been thrown through one of the windows. And standing in middle of the enormous room, glaring daggers at the blonde vampire, was Edward.  
"So, you finally found us," Damien said casually, tossing the last bits of glass from his hair as he walked back into the room and approached Edward.  
"You do _not_ touch her," Edward snarled in reply. His normally gold eyes were almost black with anger. Jane had never seen him this angry in her life- and that was certainly saying something. "You do not go near her. You don't even _think_ about her, do you hear me?"  
"Jeez, sensitive, are we?" he snorted. Then his face split into a grin as he seemed to think of something. "But then…you don't know if I'm think about her, do you- _Edward_?"  
The bronze-haired vampire was obviously thrown for a loop, and just gaped for a second. "But…how did you know I can't read minds right now?"  
"He has his own skill," Jane replied wearily. Edward turned around to look at her, and she continued. "He can render any of our skills useless, if he tries. And since he knew about your mind-reading from when we were in Italy, he made it so that you're currently incapable of seeing other peoples' thoughts. I can't turn invisible right now, either. That's why I'm still here."  
Edward seemed to take that in for a moment, but then turned back to Damien with that same murderous glint in his eyes. "That may be," he said to him, "But I still know when you're thinking about her. And believe me- _I will kill you_."  
Damien just laughed that same disgusting chortle. Edward lunged forward, and once again threw the blonde male to the other side of the room. Damien landed against the back wall, causing half of it to crumble and shake dangerously. He growled, and hurled himself at Edward. _Now_ he was mad.  
They fought viciously, too quickly for a human to see. Which reminded Jane- _Bella_. She whipped around and focused her attention on her friend, who was white as a sheet and looking like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. Jane was actually surprised she hadn't fainted from shock.  
In focusing on Bella, however, she didn't see Damien coming at her. The next thing Jane knew, she had been thrown in the air and smashed into a pile of metal scraps against the wall. Thankfully, the metal seemed more harmed than she was; but it didn't help with Edward's anger. He was obviously infuriated at seeing Damien even anywhere near Jane, because he attacked the other vampire even more forcefully than he had before.  
Damien circled Edward craftily, vaguely reminiscent of a wild cat. He had always hunted like that, his attacks skilled to a sort of dance. It was always a game, with Damien- even in a fight. He jumped back as Edward leapt forward. Jane tried to pull herself aside as Damien looked to attack her once again- but his focus was shifted when Bella tried to back up against the wall, tripping over a piece of scrap metal in the process. Glimmer in his eyes, he made a quick move and hit the human instead. She was thrown back- luckily not as far as Edward or Jane had been thrown- but enough to cause serious damage.  
Jane and Edward exchanged quick glances. In a silent decision, they went back to their tasks- he focused on Damien, and she rushed over to help Bella. She tried not to think about the fight going on behind her, and instead focused on the injured human lying on the floor.  
It didn't look good, obviously: her wrist was badly broken, and there was a huge gash on her head along with various minor cuts. She had probably broken a rib or two as well. But she was conscious, and it looked like she would be okay. Jane tried to do everything she could at that moment, throwing off her sweater to staunch the flow of blood coming from the cut on Bella's head.  
The smell didn't even bother her- she was only worried about her friend's safety- but she hoped that Edward wasn't too badly affected. Managing a quick glance his way, Jane was relieved to see that he wasn't even looking at them. He didn't seem to be affected by the blood, thankfully. He was too absorbed in the fight. Jane couldn't look at that anymore after that. Damien had thrown Edward through a window this time; she couldn't watch Edward get hurt. Holding Bella and willing the girl to stay conscious, Jane just wondered how on Earth this was all going to end.  
It seemed that just as she was thinking that, however, the massive steel door to the factory flew open- and the rest of her family rushed inside. Never had she been happier to see them then at that moment. They all sprang into action immediately once they saw the situation.  
Emmett and Jasper- and, inexplicably, Rosalie- rushed to help Edward. Jane almost smiled- now the fight would be beyond one-sided, and she had nothing to worry about in that regard. Meanwhile, Alice bounded over to Jane's side and surveyed the scene with wide eyes.  
"Carlisle!" she shouted, seeing Jane holding a rapidly declining Bella. "Come quickly, we need you over here!"  
He ran over to them and crouched down to examine her. "She'll be okay," he said after a minute. "But we need to get her to the hospital, and quickly. Jane- take her in Edward's car- the keys are under the driver's seat. You can driver faster than an ambulance could get here. And make up a story on the way."  
She nodded, and picked Bella up off the ground. She ran out of the factory, making sure not to jostle her at all. The last thing she saw as she left was the rest of them tackling Damien to the ground, and Carlisle telling them that they "knew what they had to do." She shuddered briefly, but chose not to think about that anymore. Instead, she focused on the task at hand and settled Bella into the back seat of Edward's Volvo. Once she was sure that Bella would be okay for the ride, she got in and sped off towards the hospital, thinking of a story to tell the doctors as she simultaneously sighed in relief at the thought that now that they had Damien, things could finally be okay.


	16. Chapter 16

** Chapter 16**

"So wait- what exactly was the story you gave, in case anybody says anything?" Edward asked as he walked through the sliding glass door.  
Jane sighed. "Honestly, Edward. Didn't you hear what I was think- oh…right. You couldn't hear what I was thinking then, could you?"  
He shook his head. He'd been fairly incapacitated at the time; and even if he hadn't been, he was slightly preoccupied.  
"Sorry," she said guiltily.  
He shrugged. "It's okay; we were all slightly, erm, _stressed_ at that point." That was an understatement. "But meanwhile, what's the story?"  
"Oh yeah. I told them that Bella and I went hiking in the woods, and she fell when we were climbing up some of the rocks. I said that it was just lucky we were near the car, or else we would have never gotten here."  
"Right," he replied simply. It was a plausible story. Bella was not exactly the most coordinated of individuals- even for a human, she was remarkably clumsy. Actually, if there were one thing that anyone would wonder about, it would be why she was hiking in the first place. But of course, they could cross that bridge of questions if and when they came to it.  
Edward put his hand at the base of Jane's back, a subconscious gesture he always seemed to display around her, and together they walked down the halls of the hospital. They both nodded in acknowledgement at the blonde thirty-something receptionist, who smiled pleasantly at them. Everyone at the hospital knew them as Doctor Cullen's adopted children, so it wasn't difficult to get past the front desk, even when they weren't technically allowed.  
"Good morning Jane, Edward," she greeted them cheerily. Her mind, however, was not as innocent as she made herself out to be. He could hear the thoughts running through it, and many of them centered around a few rather embarrassing fantasies involving him.  
"Hello, Cindy," he replied. "Could you possibly tell us which room Isabella Swan is in?" He smiled his most charming smile- it usually got him what he needed. Cindy's face immediately flared up in a heated blush.  
_…a bit young for me, but hey- younger guys are in right now_, she thought, though her face was still masked with her receptionist's smile as she looked briefly at her clipboard and replied, "Of course. She's in 114, right down the hall." _And I mean, he's not _that_ much younger. It'll be legal soon enough…_  
Edward decided that he didn't really want to hear anymore. Those kinds of thoughts got exhausting after awhile, and he felt uncomfortable knowing them. Still, he wanted to set the woman straight so she'd know his situation exactly. He moved his hand from Jane's back, instead choosing to take hold of her hand. He made a show of lacing their fingers together, subtly following the movement of Cindy's eyes so he knew that she was watching.  
Immediately, her face hardened the smallest bit. It would have been impossible to notice it if he had been a human. _Figures_, she grumbled in her head. _Besides being sixteen, what the heck does she have that I don't?_  
_Everything_, Edward wanted to say. But he kept it inside his own head, instead thanking Cindy politely and continuing down the hall. He kissed the top of Jane's head as they walked towards room 114.  
The dark-haired girl looked up at him when they finally got to the room.  
"What's with the sudden need for public displays of affection?" she asked. "Not that I'm complaining, of course."  
He shrugged. "No reason. I just like holding your hand, that's all."  
Jane raised an eyebrow at him, a gesture of hers that was all too familiar. She always seemed to see when he wasn't telling the truth, and let him know it.  
"Well…I just figured I'd clue people in on the fact that we're together. I like letting people know that you are mine."  
She put two and two together, of course. Damn clever little vampire. "You were listening to that receptionist Cindy's thoughts, weren't you? She was thinking about you- even _I_ could see that, and you're the mind-reader."  
Edward nodded, embarrassed.  
Jane just giggled; Edward's favorite sound in the world. "Well, don't just stand there- tell me what she was thinking!"  
It was that laugh- he was powerless before it. He relented, and shared some of the receptionist's thoughts with Jane.  
"Jeez- you're a little young for her, aren't you?" she asked with a chuckle.  
"Hardly," Edward argued back, grinning widely. "I _am_ a hundred and four years old, after all."  
She feigned shock. "Why, Mister Cullen, you awful old man! And with you seducing little 'ol me…I mean, I'm only ninety-five."  
He rolled his eyes and laughed as she did. It was moments like this that made him glad for immortality. It was just like when they had first been together, joking and carefree, back in the '20s and '30s- only now it was so, _so_ much better.  
"I need younger friends," came a cracked voice from off to the side.  
Edward looked over- he had hardly realized that they'd opened the door and now stood inside Bella's room.  
"Yeah, you do," Jane replied easily as she walked over to Bella's bedside, surveying the tubes and monitors they had her hooked up to, grimacing at the sight of it. "How are you feeling, Bella?"  
The human girl shrugged. "I'm okay- a little sore, but that's to be expected. How are you two?"  
Jane rolled her eyes. "We're fine. Immortal, remember?"  
Edward stood off to the side, not wanting to interrupt them. He watched the effortless interaction between the two girls in silence, still somewhat amazed by Bella's acceptance of them. She handled their identities well, all things considered. Of course, he could not be sure- it still perplexed him that he could not see into her mind. Why on Earth was she blocked from him? It was possibly the strangest thing he had ever encountered in his hundred years.  
He had not, however, gotten near enough yet to really study it. It was safer for Bella if he did not get too close to her. After all, her blood still 'sang' to him, as the Volturi liked to say. It was somewhat diluted with the different medicines running through her system, but still made his throat burn.  
When they were in the factory the day before and Bella had gotten hurt, the fact that her blood had spilled almost drove him crazy. It was actually a good thing that he had been so preoccupied with his own issues, otherwise things could have turned out horribly for the poor human girl. Thankfully, though, he had been completely immersed in his fight with Damien.  
Eugh…_Damien_. Edward never wanted to even think his name again.  
After speeding off from the house without waiting for his family, he arrived at that abandoned old factory to have his fears realized: Jane was there, with _him_. He had her up against one of the rusty walls. He actually had the nerve to touch her. Edward was going to literally rip his head off.  
The actual fight was kind of a blur: Edward lunged forward, and _he_ lunged back. One of them crashed into a wall, the other went through a window. They fought equally- it was an even battle. They were closely matched in size and strength, and the brawl could have gone on for ages. But Edward's main concern was not to overpower him- it was merely to keep him distracted until the rest of his family showed up.  
Considering he was the fastest, Edward had sped off first. But he knew the rest of them would not be far behind. Knowing Alice, she had the family planning out what they would do when they arrived. His main goal, therefore, was to keep _him_ away from Jane until that moment.  
He was proved right minutes later- though it felt like hours, considering how nervous he was. After _he_ somehow got hold of Jane, throwing her into the wall…even though she hadn't been hurt, it still made him livid to see. He was furious at the thought of that…_thing_…even being near his Jane. But thankfully their family showed up just as Edward was fighting to keep his concentration centered completely on the fight, and not on Bella's blood.  
Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie immediately ran towards him to help with his battle. It didn't surprise him to have his blonde sister there, though she would never seem like the type to want to get involved in something like that. In truth, Rosalie loved joining in a fight- especially one where she could take down a low-life wretch like _him_. She was made for this sort of thing.  
Now the fight was more than evenly matched, which had Edward happy. He could glance out of the corner of his eye to check on everything else. He saw Alice run over to Jane's side- she was holding a barely-conscious Bella and working to staunch the flow of her blood.  
Luckily Carlisle was there to make sure that she was okay. He sent Jane to the hospital so that Bella could get immediate care. Of course, this was as much for Jane's benefit as for Bella's- none of them wanted Jane to see what was about to occur- least of all Edward.  
After she left, it did not take long for them to have _him_ completely trapped. Emmett and Jasper each took hold of one of his arms, holding him down as he struggled furiously against them. Rosalie was the one to make the first move- she ripped off his head as he was held relatively still. She, Emmett, and Jasper worked quickly after that, tearing the rest of him to pieces and throwing them in piles of burning wood that Alice and Esme had set up.  
Edward watched in morbid delight as the fires raged, filling the air with heavy purple smoke that signaled one of their kind burning. He couldn't help the shiver of satisfaction that ran through his veins as he watched the destruction of that horrible creature that had hurt the girl he loved. But he would never go near her again. Finally, Edward could be sure that his Jane was safe. That was the only thought on his mind, as those thick-scented fires burned…

"Edward? Edward!" Jane's voice brought him back to the present.  
"Hm?" he asked, noticing that she and Bella were staring at him. How long had he been lost in thought?  
Jane furrowed her brows. "You kind of zoned out for a minute there, honey. What were you thinking so hard about?"  
"Nothing," he replied, shaking his head. "Just how glad I am that you're safe. Both of you," he added with a genuine smile at Bella. She really was a nice girl, and he was glad that he was able to be around her without…well, wanting to kill her.  
"Thanks," Bella replied, smiling.  
Jane opened her mouth to say something, but then wrinkled her nose and frowned. "Eugh, what is _that_?" she said. "Do you guys smell that?"  
Edward, still working on his issues with Bella's blood, had been preoccupied with trying not to smell that. But as soon as Jane mentioned it, he wrinkled his own nose in disgust. "Yes," he replied. "That certainly is unpleasant." He sniffed the air a few more times- as unpleasant as that smell was, he wanted to get a clearer scent of it. It was repulsively familiar. But what _was_ it?  
"I don't smell anything," Bella interjected. She sniffed a bit, including her own hair. Of course, that wasn't it at all.  
"It's not you, Bella," Jane said when she saw the girl's confusion. "Trust me, you don't smell bad at all. This is totally different."  
Just as they were wondering what on Earth it could be, the door opened and an unfamiliar boy walked in. He was tall- probably four or five inches taller than Edward, who was by no means short at 6'2. Edward had never seen him before…but his russet-colored skin and jet-black hair gave him away right then. Even having never met him, the vampire would have recognized the boy anywhere: he was a Quileute, the local Native American tribe. Immediately, Edward stiffened.  
"Bella!" the boy cried, and rushed to her side. "I'm so glad you're okay…I wanted to come earlier, but I had some things I had to get done around the rez before I could leave."  
"It's okay," she replied, and leaned up to kiss him briefly. She blushed a bit as they parted and she seemed to realize that there were two other people in the room. "Oh…sorry. Jane, Edward, this is my boyfriend Jacob Black."  
Jane cringed the slightest bit, but it was too small for the others to notice, and it was gone within a moment and replaced by a smile.  
"Nice to meet you, Jacob," she greeted him politely. _God, how does Bella stand that? He smells like a wet dog_, she was thinking, her mind belying her outwardly pleasant demeanor.  
Edward tried not to laugh aloud at her thoughts. Jacob _did_ smell like a wet dog. But he wasn't about to get into that.  
"Hi," he said rather gruffly, nodding at the other boy.  
"Hi," Jacob repeated, just as stiff as Edward.  
Jane and Bella exchanged glances, clearly wondering what was going on, but luckily decided to ignore that for the moment in favor of keeping things cheerful. The four of them talked for a few more minutes, until Charlie Swan, Bella's father, showed up in the room.  
"Oh!" he said, clearly surprised at the amount of people in the room. "I, um…didn't know Bella had so much company."  
The girl in the bed just smiled. "Dad! I'm actually glad you're here. I want you to meet a couple of people- this is Jane Blackwell and Edward Cullen."  
"Right- Doctor Cullen's kids, yeah?" he asked.  
They both nodded.  
Bella continued, "Jane was the one who was with me when I was…hiking. If she hadn't been there to help me when I fell off those rocks, who knows what could've happened."  
Chief Swan immediately smiled, though his eyes widened. Edward caught a string of his thoughts- he was wondering how on Earth someone that small could have possibly carried Bella anywhere. Edward's mouth twitched as he tried to hold in a laugh at that.  
"Well, thank you!" he said sincerely. He was obviously a man of few words, but he was honest in his gratefulness.  
"Any time," Jane replied. "Though I really hope I don't mean that- I don't want that to happen again."  
"Yeah, me either," Bella grumbled, looking down at the various tubes and monitors hooked up to her. "I feel like a circuit board."  
They all chuckled briefly at that, then spent a few more minutes talking. Eventually, though, Jane and Edward exchanged glances. They both figured Charlie would want to spend some time with his daughter, and Jacob with his girlfriend, and that Bella probably shouldn't have so many visitors at once. After a few more sincere expressions of happiness that Bella was okay, they said their goodbyes to the three other people in the room and left the hospital.

"What was going on with you and Jacob Black back there?" Jane asked as they drove back to their house.  
"Nothing," he replied immediately.  
She looked over at him. "Edward," she said sternly. "I'm not an idiot. You looked like you wanted to kill the kid. Have you ever even met him before?"  
Edward shook his head. "No," he replied. "But my family knows his. And we…well, we just don't get along very well. I'd rather not talk about it."  
"Okay," she replied, sensing his discomfort. She took his hand that wasn't on the steering wheel and squeezed it gently, letting him know that she wouldn't question him anymore. He could see from the thoughts running through her mind that she wasn't going to let this topic go…but they would cross that bridge later. For now, they could forget about it. As he drove home, holding Jane's hand tightly within his own, Edward's only thought was that in this moment, they had far more important things to do.


	17. Epilogue

AN: Hey guys...I edited my old chapters to take out the old author's notes and stuff, but everything is the same! Just doing a bit of polishing...and still working on the sequel to this that is a long time coming. I need my muse back, it's run away. Nevertheless, this is the last chapter to this- I've been re-reading and I loved every minute of writing it, so I hope you all liked reading it too! :)

The sun shone directly overhead, casting a warm glow over all the greenery that surrounded them. It was the sunniest day of the year so far, and probably the first warm one they had had since the previous August. It was the summer solstice, Edward realized- the longest amount of daylight of the year. They had finally left the dreary, rainy spring behind them and moved on to a considerably more pleasant (and surprisingly sunny) summer.

Jane was laying out in their meadow, in the only slightly damp grass, letting the sun fall across her and reflect the millions of sparkles that danced across her white skin. Edward contented himself with running a finger along her face, tracing her delicate features. He could not help but gaze at the beauty that lay before him. He could easily stare at her for another thousand years and still not be bored.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a tiny giggle, her lips curving into a smile under his touch.

His response was to lean down and capture her lips with his.

Edward could not believe how much he loved kissing Jane. If he could only do one thing for the rest of his eternal existence, he would choose that. Not that he did not thoroughly enjoy the _other_ things they did (and boy, did he), but there was just something so fascinating about kissing her.

It was always different. Sometimes Edward would kiss her gently, their lips barely touching, both of them just enjoying the feel of the other. Other times he would kiss her heatedly, which usually ended up with him throwing her against the wall in a fit of passion, glad for her unbreakable body.

At this moment, though, he was trailing his lips down her neck, listening to her laugh softly as he brushed against a particularly ticklish spot.

"Hey," Jane said, breaking their silence. "I just thought of something."

Edward lifted his head from her neck to look down at her. "Oh?"

She nodded, a suspicious glint in her eye as she bit her lower lip and grinned at him. "I was just thinking about that race we had- remember, in the summer of 1933? We never did figure out who's faster between the two of us."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting a rematch?" he asked, smirking. "Because I am pretty sure that that can be arranged."

"You read my mind," Jane laughed. "Just know that I am going to crush you."

"Hah!" Edward scoffed, and leapt up so that he was standing. "You wish! Now, what are the terms of the bet this time around?"

She scrunched up her face in concentration, then stood up as well. "Hm. Well if I win, you don't complain about my invisibility for a month."

He groaned. "Fine," he sighed.

Jane grinned widely. "Excellent! Now, what do you want if you win?"

Edward thought about it for a moment before it finally came to him. "Well, I _did_ like that Ferrari we drove in Italy…"

She laughed out loud. "Then I change my mind! If I win, you don't complain about my invisibility for a _year_!"

He pulled a face. Could he go an entire year? He weighed the options in his mind for a moment. "Fine," he conceded. "It's a deal."

They solemnly shook hands, then took their positions at the makeshift starting line that they had created.

"To the opposite side of the meadow and back," Edward instructed. She nodded in return.

Jane crouched into position beside him. "On your mark, get set…go!"

Both took off like bullets from a gun. Edward glanced at Jane out of the corner of his eye. _Damn_. He'd forgotten how fast she actually was. By the time he got to the far side of the meadow, he was winning, but only just barely. She was only inches behind him, still on his heels. They got closer and closer to the finish line, Edward finally edging himself into the lead.

Just then, he felt a solid- yet still almost insignificant- weight on his back. It seemed hardly anything, but it was enough to cause him to stop in his tracks and look up at whatever it was.

"Gotcha," Jane giggled from above him, and leaned down to kiss him swiftly on the lips. She immediately jumped off of his back, and sprinted the rest of the short distance to the finish line. "Hah!" she shouted triumphantly. "I win!"

Edward looked at her incredulously. "You did not!" he huffed back. "That wasn't fair, you cheated!"

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, did I?" she replied. "That's funny, because I seem to remember a similar situation taking place a few years back." Immediately, a familiar scene appeared in her mind.

_On your mark, get set…go!"_

_She was off like a shot, but Edward wasn't far behind her. He caught up quickly, both of them running neck and neck towards the mountain. He reached the mountain a split second after she did, and touched the base of it before running back in the opposite direction. Jane sped up, and Edward followed suit- not exactly eager to lose against her. But he seemed to have underestimated her abilities, because Jane was fast- very fast. In fact, she was about to beat him as they neared their 'finish line'…until Edward reached out his arms, grabbed her around the waist, and tackled her to the ground with a triumphant laugh._

_"Hey!" Jane cried indignantly. "That isn't fair, you cheated!"_

_Edward chuckled. "Sorry," he shrugged, not sorry in the least bit. He offered up a sheepish smile. "Call it a draw?"_

Edward laughed. "Alright, I see your point. So why don't we just do what we did then, and call it a draw?"

"Fine," Jane said back in an exaggerated sigh. "I guess we'll never find out who the fastest one is."

"I'm sure we will some day," he replied. "Once we get over this compelling urge to cheat at every race. Who knows, maybe we'll have one of the others referee for us. But it doesn't really matter now, does it? We've got awhile to figure it out."

"Just all of forever," she replied with a grin. She tilted her head upwards, and he leaned down to meet her halfway in a kiss.

"Shall we go?" he asked, heading in the direction of where they'd parked his car when they went to the meadow.

"Definitely," Jane agreed. "Let's head out."

Edward reached for her hand. She took it, and entwined their fingers as they walked towards home.


End file.
